


1644

by AsbestosMouth



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Historical, But the English were first, Cavaliers versus Roundheads, Character Death, English Civil War, Even if the French prefer Joffrey, F/F, F/M, Gen, I've always wanted to use the previous tag, M/M, Ramsay is his own warning, The French killed their king as well dammit, To be honest I'm on Stannis' side, Vive la Revolution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-14
Updated: 2016-04-28
Packaged: 2018-05-26 16:41:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 14
Words: 52,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6247630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AsbestosMouth/pseuds/AsbestosMouth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>England. 1644. </p><p>Two years previously, in his madness, King Joffrey turned to tyranny. Determined to rule alone, citing the Divine Right of Kings, he dissolved Parliament and the Privy Council and forced the rites of the Seven upon the Old-Gods worshipping north. When evidence of his bastardy is discovered, the green and pleasant English isle descends once more into Civil War. Colonel Stannis Baratheon, now the sole leader of the Parliamentarian forces, is determined to rid the realm of the over-reaching parasite of a monarch. Democracy. Freedom of worship. Reformation of a corrupt faith. Noble goals. The king, however, is not without support.</p><p>It was suggested that an English Civil War fic starring Stannis as Oliver Cromwell would be an excellent idea. Bit between teeth, I ran with it. Many many 'ships, points of view, and probably chapters. Since this may be a big fic, 'ships will come eventually with changing POV. Promise. They'll all be in there. My shipping is like the English Channel - very busy with lots of traffic. <strong>Now complete 14/14</strong>.</p><p>Chapter POV: 1-3 Davos, 4-6 Sandor, 7- Arya, 8- Ramsey, 9-10 Jaime, 11- Davos, 12- Sandor, 13- Jaime, 14- Life. Death. Rebirth (the end).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Davos I

**Author's Note:**

  * For [swimmingfox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/swimmingfox/gifts).



* * *

 

Captain Seaworth despised horses.

 

At home on the sea, and dragged unwillingly with the Colonel’s cohort upon the land, he was expected to ride one of the damned beasts. The rouncey, flea-bitten grey with a wall-eyed stupidity that seemed impressive even amongst the cavalry mounts, seemed sober enough. Lazy, perhaps. Her aged grizzled flanks and Seaworth’s badger-striped beard suited well, and he was just thankful that the Colonel had not chosen one of the more spirited animals as his mount. Baratheon favoured lean, rangy geldings, as hungry-ribbed and intense as the gentleman himself.

 

“Come now, Seaworth,” his companion chuckled. “Still holding onto Bessie’s mane, after all of these weeks?”

 

“I’d like to see you in a rough storm, with a broken mast, perhaps with crew washed overboard and the sheets tearing as no one can bring them in.” His warm voice sounded tart, even to his own ears. Was there such a matter as horse sickness? To be swaying, and nauseated, and feeling the shift of hide and muscle hours after dismounting the mare?

 

Florent grinned, heavy eyebrows half-shielding his beetle-bright eyes. “I’m not foolish enough to be caught in such, Ser. A Florent is never caught, unless it is in the bed of a likely wench!”

 

Seaworth shook his head. “Should you not be protecting the Lady Selyse rather than mocking my ability to ride?”

 

“She is closeted with the Red Witch, as always.” His expression mirrored Seaworth’s. Lady Selyse grew overly-fond of the flame-haired priestess. It would not do to have the Colonel’s name sullied in such a manner, not when the war sprang forth from a disparity of ideologies, and they were very much aware of the claret-wine gazes Melisandre directed towards Baratheon. They said she could form death from shadows, and twist the life from the throat of a man with the mere caress of her white fingertips. Aye, she was lovely, in the way that fire threatened. Hypnotic, and dazzling, and searing with promise and heat. One touch. Just the slightest brush. All would be consumed.

 

“Does Lady Selyse,” and Seaworth paused for a moment, considering, “not see the regard that her friend has for the Colonel?”

 

Florent shrugged. He rode easily for a large man, clad in russet broadcloth and gloves lined with fox furs. “If she does, she says nothing. If she does not, then my niece is more a fool than I thought. Her head is turned with preaching.”

 

“The Priestess is dangerous, Ser Axell. I fear for the Colonel if she is able to persuade him to listen to her ravings on the Eastern god. If he sways from the true path of the righteous, if he listens to her sorcery-”

 

“Aye. We would be done for, Seaworth.”

* * *

  
War was inevitable.

 

In his madness, the boy who sat upon the throne turned away his council and took to tyranny. By Divine Right, he ranted, he was King; he would not submit to earthly authority, to mere human command. As the chosen of the Seven, he would not be subject to his people, or his advisors, for his right to rule was given to him by the Gods and no other. From that moment forward, the king would rule upon his iron throne and his word - the word of the Seven - would be absolute. In that vein, whether insanity or foolishness, he dissolved the Parliament and vowed to rule his country alone.

 

Colonel Baratheon - he had been the Lord Stannis of Dragonstone then, Master of the King’s Fleet and member of the Privy Council - had alluded to the threat of war before the first blow was struck. His lands decimated by the Ship Taxes, he spoke passionately of overreaching monarchs, the rising of the common man against the yoke of kingly suppression. A traitor, perhaps, in his words, but was not a man free to speak of such matters in the seat of democracy, in this cradle of civilisation? His words were a warning, a plea to the boy who would shatter the fragile peace that lay, shivering and nervous, across the kingdoms. If Joffrey continued upon the path of dictator, then war would be upon them.

 

Baratheon was banished to his island fortress. The Privy Council stuffed full of Lannister cronies. The North, forced to have the Seven thrust upon them in lieu of their ancient gods, added to the growing discontent.

 

Perhaps even then the inevitable could have been avoided. However, the revelation of the true parentage of the child king - nothing but a bastard incest-born and bred, not the true son of Robert Baratheon, first of his name - set a spark to the stacked powder keg.

 

The resulting explosion echoed the length and breadth of the island.

 

The East rose first under the twin brace of the Baratheon brothers, wishing to avenge the wrong done unto the country and their fallen sibling, and as news travelled north upon the wings of ravens and the saddles of messengers, the regions chose their allegiance. The West, where the Lannister and Tyrell blood dominated, stayed loyal to their child ruler; those lands of plenty, where great houses grew fat and indolent upon the benevolent indulgence of the crown. But the East, and the North, and those midlands between, heavily intermarried and mingled? They looked upon the tyrant and despaired.

 

Upon the mountains and moors, in the chill north beyond the great and ancient wall, the Covenanters prepared. They eschewed the septs and the liturgies of the Seven, forced upon them by the zealous southrons, they knelt beneath their weirwood trees and sent their treaty proposals to the Baratheons. Their request? When, not if, the Iron Throne fell, the preservation of the religion of the Old Gods and the reformation of the worship of the New. If the rebels agreed to the demands of the Scots, then the Scots would stand with the rebels and battle for the moral soul of the kingdom.

 

Dorne, too, usually detached from the politics of war, wedded herself to the rebel cause. Long had the Princes of the peninsula quarrelled with the Lannisters, long had they been mortal enemies. The Martells of Sunspear blamed the death of Elia Martell and her royal brood upon the Lions of Casterly Rock. The child that sat upon the Iron Throne, the twisted result of the Lannister twins’ immoral lusts, his hands red with the blood of innocents and a dictator wearing a golden crown, must be brought to justice.

 

All of this. Every single life, and soul. Upon the shoulders of one Colonel Baratheon.

 

* * *

 

 

Seaworth abandoned his mare to the careful hand of a groom, picking his way across the hoof-muddied turf to the command tent. Whilst the flags and pennants of the various companies glowed with colour, the men themselves tended towards more sober outfits. The royalists, bedecked in their finery and jewels, represented for many - especially the Scotch contingent - the worst of the excesses destroying the realm. Velvets and silks and gold, when the poor starved and died in their hundreds? No, the rebels tended towards dark woollen cloth, hair cropped short, calf-fitting leather boots. The Northerners favoured the even more plain, ascetic and austere in turn. Colonel Baratheon favoured their dress, the dullness of the garb. In black, his dark hair cropped severely and expression grave, he could be of the Covenanters themselves.

 

“Ah, Seaworth.” Baratheon mulled over unfurled maps and records of troop movements. “How are the men?”

 

“Holding up, sire. Many of them are getting restless, desiring some sort of action.”

 

“They will see war soon enough. They should not foolishly wish it upon themselves.” More had joined the cause since Nantwich. A scrawl of ink across parchment, the Colonel handing the note to the favoured of the boy drummers, the child fleeing into the grey drizzle.

 

“Many are young, and impetuous, my lord. For those who have tasted battle, there is less of an urge to relive it.” He settled upon his stool, to the left of Baratheon. Some thought it strange that a man, a common smuggler, had been raised to the confidence of the Colonel. They had not witnessed the bravery of the buccaneer captain who broke the siege of Storm’s End during the Baratheon rebellion of almost two decades previous, or the loyalty he showed to a man who punished his naval crimes by removing the tips of Seaworth’s fingers.

 

Baratheon nodded. He seemed older than his years. Perhaps everyone did, with war.

 

“The Dornish are marching north to rendezvous with our companies, bringing fresh horse, men, and supplies. Martell assures me they shall be with us within the week, though their progress be slow. Tyrell scouts are patrolling the more travelled roads, so Martell is riding across country.” The dashing Prince of Dorne remained somewhat of an unknown quantity.

  
“It is perhaps a little strange,” Seaworth added carefully, “that Martell is so intertwined with the Tyrells, yet fights for our cause, Colonel? Some of the commanders have voiced the concern his support lies with others, but I have reassured them that this is indeed not the case. I am sure that you, ser, would not trust a man without being assured of his absolute loyalty.”

 

“His friendship with the Tyrell boy has not gone unnoticed.” Dark eyes, storm-blue, fixed upon Seaworth’s own warm brown, level and unruffled by the question posed. No other could have broached the subject without risking the ire of the Colonel. “Martell assures me that he is steadfast in his support for our cause, and I believe the man - his hatred for Lannisters is quite legendary after all, Captain.”

 

“And Willas Tyrell cannot fight. That, at least, allows some relief.” He poured rough red claret into a leather tankard, pressing it to his leader’s hand. Baratheon took a long draught, and then returned the vessel, encouraging the smuggler to also drink. With such shortage and need, no waste was tolerated.

 

“His young brother will oppose us, of course. He will still want my head in retaliation for what happened to Renly.” Baratheon’s expression did not flicker at the mention of his dead brother, but his jaw worked and teeth ground, the only outlying sign of tension. Of the three siblings, he was the remaining, the living, the one upon the enterprise now relied. No wonder the Colonel looked tired; shadowed and overly-gaunt, drum-skin stretched over bone and sinew.

 

Renly’s death at Nantwich had thrown the war effort into an almost catastrophic turmoil. The more appealing of the two remaining Baratheon - smiling, and handsome, and almost Royalist in his demeanour - Renly had been a splendid man, radiating a warmth and passion that roused others. A sharp contrast, of course, to his stubborn, cold brother who excelled at tactics and troop movements rather than charm and flattery. Hearts followed Renly, but those with sensible heads, and who wished to survive, respected the leadership of Colonel Baratheon. And now, with Renly cold and moldering in some Cheshire field, and the outcome of this war upon a blade’s edge, the former Lord of Dragonstone carried too much. Seaworth ached for him. He tried to shoulder as much duty as he could prise from his lord, but the perfectionism of Baratheon, the concentrated obsession with the minutiae, meant even the Captain’s efforts often were in vain.

 

His liege seemed thinner, shadows stark under too-sharp cheekbones. He was not looking after himself, Seaworth knew. When did the man even sleep? He drank but little, and ate rather less. That fatherly spirit, the force that had raised seven sons with his beloved wife - she lay peacefully in the family plot overlooking the bay at Cape Wrath - seized him as ever it did when faced with a person who needed care, and his shortened hand gently grasped the Colonel’s black-clad elbow.

 

“Have you been eating, Stannis?” He never used Baratheon’s Sept-given name unless he was truly concerned, and never before the other men. “You look a little unwell. I can ask the boy to fetch you some soup with bread, or some cheese-?”

 

“Stop fussing, Seaworth.” The tone could have been harsh, but was accompanied with the briefest of tight-lipped exasperated smiles. The merest flicker of appreciation. “You still think it your role to feed me, even after these eighteen years.”

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _I live near Nantwich. When I was twelve, and not yet living near there, I went on a canal boat holiday through the town with my family and caught Salmonella poisoning. On a canal boat. With six people. And one bathroom. Nantwich, although a very beautiful town with lots of lovely history and glorious buildings, has A Connotation. If Renly had to die anywhere, it would be there. Nantwich. It's a silly place. The Sealed Knot, who are an awesome group of re-enactors, 'do' the Battle of Nantwich yearly. Probably because Cheshire is a nice place, even if the food can cause traumatic illnesses._
> 
> _I have also been singing Monty Python's 'Oliver Cromwell' for about a week now._
> 
> **History Bit:**
> 
> I am taking some liberties with this, I apologise History Fans. At this time, it was Sir Thomas Fairfax, not Oliver Cromwell, who was considered de facto leader of the Parliamentarian forces. Cromwell was just another of the commanders, albeit one who possessed more political know-how than others. 
> 
> The Battle of Nantwich, fought between Fairfax and the Royalist commander Lord Byron (distant relation to the poet), took place on 25th January 1644. At the time, the village was the only Parliamentarian stronghold remaining in the area; the rest had fallen to the Royalists. In defeating the enemy, the Parliamentarians broke the stranglehold of the Royalists upon the north midland area, and did not allow the fresher influx of Charles I's 'Irish' regiments to successfully combine with other regiments in the Cheshire area. It could possibly be said that the Battle of Nantwich signalled the fall of Royalist support in the north.
> 
> I have also taken liberties with counties that supported the Parliamentarians and Royalists. Support for the Crown tended towards the West and south west, but also encompassed much of the north of England. Parliamentarian support took in much of the south east, the east, and the Midlands - the 'industrialised' areas, it could be argued. Rural parts tended towards the King. However, since I do want to keep some of this ASoIaF-y, I have tinkered to make the North Parliamentarian.


	2. Davos II

* * *

 

 

“You did what?” The anger scorched Baratheon’s voice, though the pitch and volume did not waver. Stone-carved and still, he stared at the figure who lounged before him with a stark disbelief. “Are you quite mad Prince Oberyn? Are you out of your senses? Do you mean to bring the Tyrell army upon our heads?”

 

The man, handsome and arrogant in equal measure, and dressed far more elegantly than any mere Royalist, waved a leather-clad hand. He wore black in the Parliamentarian fashion, of course, but in the manner of a raven’s wing; fabric that shimmered purples and greens, exquisite lambskin, fine-spun wool. The collected horse, the men, and the Martell arrived when scheduled, bringing much needed relief and cheer to the regiments. It was quietly postulated amongst the troops that perhaps the coming of the Dornish signified the rise of another Renly, who would smile and praise and glamour? Would Oberyn Martell command with a velvet tongue and a cheerful word, and be the counterpoint to Baratheon’s cold stern rule?

 

Seaworth winced at the Colonel’s tone. This was to be more unpleasant than he feared.

 

“Please, Lord Stannis, it is not Lord Oberyn’s fault that I am here.” The pale and serious young man, leaning heavily upon an ebony cane, swayed only very slightly. The grip upon the silvered handle was overly-tight, almost bruising, and trembling. Despite his physical frailties, he appeared stoutly adamant. “I requested he bring me north with him, and I apologise for any trouble that my presence causes. I did not mean to create-”

 

“Hush, Willas,” murmured the prince, fingers light upon the young Tyrell’s arm. A most curiously affectionate gesture, perhaps, between two close friends. The touch lingered for a moment longer than propriety demanded. “You must rest. Your poor leg, riding so far. You are most brave, dear Tyrell. Such resolution have I rarely seen. You must rest, and eat, and sleep. Poor boy.”

 

“But I must talk with Colonel Baratheon-”

 

“After you sleep.” An order. Seaworth expected the heir of the House of Roses to refuse, but Tyrell closed his eyes for the briefest of moments, a sigh whispering from between those wan lips. His face was indeed terribly grey.

 

“You are right, Lord Oberyn. Please, sers, if you could excuse me, it has been a very trying few days.”  It was for the best perhaps, before Tyrell collapsed or worse; he really did appear to be ailing. It was long postulated that a crippling injury in his youth had half-broken this young man, causing a certain delicacy of body though sparing his clever mind. Perhaps such a wild and dangerous ride from the south to the very heart of England had exacerbated his frailties?  A large and elaborately armed Dornish officer, curiously dark of skin and bald of head, escorted Tyrell from the command tent. His manner, and care, bordered upon the meticulously attentive.

 

Martell removed his kid-soft gloves, examining his nails in a rather affected manner before smoothing his perfectly groomed moustaches. Seaworth did not know what to make of the man; he appeared almost foppish in dress and mannerism, but the entire realm knew of the accomplishments of the Dornishman. Prince Oberyn obviously possessed an impressive strength of character to be flippant before the Colonel given the seriousness of the situation. From what the Captain knew, the Prince favoured the pike and halberd, rode like the Warrior possessed, and bred the finest and fleetest horses in the realm. He sired a passel of illegitimate daughters upon whom he doted. Men named him the Red Viper for his knowledge of poisons. When he grinned, and he often grinned, Martell appeared wildly handsome. Even within this shabby and muddy tent, he seemed to glow. Above all, he seemed intelligent; more so than the Colonel’s last commander. Compared to Renly, this Martell seemed more dangerous, perhaps, in his acuity. 

 

“You are a fool, Martell.” Baratheon hissed, jaw tense and teeth pressed tight. The sudden anger sliced through Seaworth’s contemplation and he blinked, trying to refocus upon the two men before him. Prince Oberyn was smiling, bordering upon mocking. Malice glittered ill-concealed within his dark-eyed gaze.

 

“How could I resist? The sweet flower of the Tyrells. A request to be rescued. I am but a man of action.” Still mild-faced, still malevolent. His accent, exotic within the confines of the command tent, caressed soft and rich.

 

“Your actions will place us all in danger, you imbecile.”

 

Martell chuckled rather unpleasantly. “More danger than being shot at? Stabbed? Associating with the Scottish?”

 

When strained, Baratheon had fallen into the habit of grinding his teeth. Seaworth usually took it upon himself to gently remind the Colonel to cease, but never in company, and especially not before this arch gentleman with his knowing sneer. Later there would be headache and neck pain, and willow-bark comfrey, and complaints about aching jawbones. Later, when he would be Stannis, the entire event would be as some terrible waking dream that the Captain would have to quietly correct in his efficient and warm-natured way.

 

“You know exactly what I mean, Martell.” Niceties had seemingly left the tent with the departure of the Tyrell boy.

 

“Should I have left him?” The prince helped himself to the flagon of red, tasted it, then curled a lip. “I must write home for more wine. This is filth. An army cannot fight on this. No wonder you did not win Edgehill, dear Colonel. A rebellion could occur when wine is this bad.” He drank deeply though, emptying the vessel.

 

“If Tyrell wished to join with us, he should have done it upon his own volition!” The Baratheon temper swelled, the timbre of his voice harsher, rougher, quite glorious in self-righteous wroth. “Rather than diverting essential goods and men in what could have been pure folly. If he desired to break ties with his family and come north, he should-”

 

“Yes, yes, a crippled boy on his own across country. What a fine idea!” Prince Oberyn’s genial expression slipped, just a fraction, the Viper’s fangs finally extending and venom sparkling acidic-green upon his keen tongue. “He would have been dead within the week, Colonel. I am a man with many friends. Something you are lacking, it seems. For my good friends, I will move mountains. For my Tyrell, I will move the Earth itself.”

 

“The last time a man attempted to extricate a paramour, he was killed.” Renly. The idiot. Riding across the lines to protect the fallen Knight of Flowers, the bloody enemy of course, he had taken a musket ball to the chest. Death was not even instantaneous, but a shambolic, ignoble downfall. No heroic last words for Renly, no laying prettily upon a white-linen bier as his family and lover paid their last respects. Just blood, and the sobbing of someone who was slowly, agonizingly dying, and the stink of shit.

 

“Renly was a ninny. Tyrell is not my paramour.” Counted off on those long brown fingers, accentuating the unabashed truth, at least regarding the youngest of Baratheons. Seaworth found himself agreeing most whole-hearted - his opinion of Renly had never been high - but the Colonel rose slowly, his hand clenched into a fist. The insult, sharp and jagged in turn, lingered and dug and tormented. Love, or hate, or a myriad of shades in-between, Renly had still been his little brother. Since the man’s death, Baratheon had become overly-protective of his memory in a silent, angry, frozen sort of way.

 

“Then what is he, Martell? Catamite? Whore?” The words spat from bitter lips, retaliation for the barbs directed towards his brother; the Colonel had disliked Renly, whether from jealousy, or annoyance of the competent at the waste of such potential, or because that was what such brothers did. Mutual, of course. Too different. Too competitive in a way. However, prick one Baratheon brother, and the other also bled. With Renly unable to defend his honour, another would stand in his stead.

 

Martell considered the granite anger of the Baratheon, ice cracking within his usually merry eyes, his lip curling in distaste. For a moment it seemed as if he would stride forward and strike the furious man standing before him; just a shift of a hip demonstrating ill-concealed strength, agile and lithe in turn. The contrast between him and the Colonel, who was angles, and breadth across the shoulders, and straight-backed rigidity, was marked. If they fought, and Seaworth was, praying to whatever Gods were listening that such an event would not occur, he knew who would triumph; he only pleaded that Martell would allow Baratheon to live.

 

“One more insult. My horse and pikemen will return to Dorne.” 

 

“Get out, Martell!” The bellowing roar of an irate dominant stag, threatened upon his own thresh-hold, was deafening indeed.

 

The prince stalked from the tent without a by your leave, and Baratheon groaned, pressing his face into his ink-stained hands. A disaster. A pure disaster. Tyrell’s defection meant the western armies would fight harder to recover the man, and the Royalists had opportunity to paint his disappearance as a black-hearted and dishonourable kidnapping. Prince Oberyn was a gentleman who never forgave a slight, and even if both men were at fault Baratheon twisted a metaphorical knife. Would the Dornishman ever rise to become the much-vaunted figurehead he needed to be? With the filth directed towards the Tyrell boy, and accusations of sodomy ringing in his ears would he even wish to be?

 

“You have possibly outdone yourself this time.”

 

“Shut up, Davos.”

 

“Yes, my lord.” Seaworth, as his wont, ignored the order. His calloused and practiced fingers sought out the tense tissue at the nape of Baratheon’s neck, that knot created by the infernal tooth grinding; the Colonel’s soft exhalation indicated that the Captain kneaded the affected area. The man’s flesh was warm, overly so, flushed pink and red up to the dark hairline. “I can arrange an apology if you so wish. Perhaps if we explain the circumstances of Renly’s passing, the prince may be rather more understanding of your fears when confronted by what seemed a similar situation?” Seaworth paused, then smoothed the ruffled hair of the Colonel. A practiced touch, benevolent and consoling in measure. “I will speak for you, if you think that would help?”

 

Under the tenderness of the Captain’s ministrations, Baratheon seemed to half-melt; his arms bonelessly crossed upon the heavy table, forehead resting upon his wrists. “It would be best, perhaps, if I wrote something. Perhaps if you could take the missive to the prince?”

 

Such a small, flagging voice. The pain seemed overly great too soon, and as intense as any that Stannis suffered over the long years of their friendship. The responsibility that Davos took upon himself to help relieve the agony was borne from a respect he had for no other man. Giving his commander some semblance of relief during these debilitating agues was, indeed, an honour he cherished with a fierce and heated price. Only Seaworth saw the vulnerability, and then only when Baratheon allowed him to witness such.

 

“Of course.” Anything. Anything for Stannis Baratheon. Seaworth’s life included. Others had the Seven, or the Ancient Ones, or even that strange Eastern religion of flame that the Red Witch espoused. Davos? Davos’ God had eyes so blue they seemed as the ocean upon a summer’s day, and was as fallible as the rest of mankind.

 

* * *

  
  
Prince Oberyn’s tent was busy, elegantly louche, and charmingly overfull of soft-felted blankets. Dornish taste tended towards rich brocade and richer tones, and, even if this was a mere travelling headquarters, the structure adhered to the appetites of the principality. An actual wooden-framed carved bed had somehow been conjured from Gods knew where, shaming the uncomfortable and Puritanical cot upon which Seaworth himself slept. He was not surprised to see the Tyrell boy upon the bed, swaddled and resting among an array of embroidered cushions. The prince was conspicuous in his absence.

 

“Good evening, my lord.” He did not mind Willas Tyrell, who seemed shyly and enthusiastically amiable and at least polite. The heir was, according to many, an honourable and scholarly sort, one of the leading minds of his generation in matters of animal husbandry and selected breeding, especially in regards to racing horses. A good fellow, by all accounts, rather less rash-minded than others of his dynasty.

 

“Oh, hello! You must be Captain Seaworth? I am so very sorry not to properly make your acquaintance earlier, but I am very glad to finally meet you at last. Please will you sit? Would you like some wine? I’m afraid that Prince Oberyn has gone to inspect one of the horses - it is a little lame, favouring the foreleg, and he does prefer to attend to these matters in person.” The Dornishman also shared the Tyrell passion for horseflesh; the embroidered sun and spear of the peninsula often adorned the silks of jockeys upon the Downs.

 

Seaworth settled and poured a goblet for himself. Raising a questioning eyebrow, he gestured at Tyrell, and the man smiled faintly, nodding. The cups were heavy pewter, and beautifully worked. Far higher quality than anything the Captain had ever used. As was the wine.

 

“That is spectacular.” He took another draught, wonderingly. “I have never tasted a wine as sweet, and, and…” He fought for the correct wordage. “Sunlight. It is as if it is made of sunlight.”

 

“Oberyn owns a few vines at his estate, this is one of his own vintages.” Thin fingers cradled the chalice, and Tyrell sipped, eyes closing. “Dorne is wonderful for wine. I thought our Highgarden fruit cordials were lovely, but this is very special. Where Oberyn lives, the air is warm all the year around, and he loves to see beautiful rare plants growing within his gardens. I believe he managed to cultivate a pineapple once! Can you imagine?” Such riches indeed.

 

“So, my lord, you are here for the wine?” Much easier, he reasoned, to keep the conversation light. The boy, so exhausted, could hardly lift the wine to his own lips, let alone talk at length of what confounded both Seaworth and the Colonel. Why, oh why, did Willas Tyrell defect to the rebellion? A warm conversation, a friendly one. Perhaps that would tempt the answers that Baratheon sought?

 

“It truly is excellent. Perhaps I am?” His laugh was soft and sleepy, eyelids bruised with tiredness. “But no, Captain Seaworth, my presence here is due to other, more pressing matters. I am an admirer of Colonel Baratheon. Perhaps that comes as a small shock?” A ‘small shock’ bordered upon the understated, but Seaworth allowed the young man to continue uninterrupted. Much better to allow Tyrell to speak his piece than encourage tangents.

 

“However,” the Welshman expanded, “the Colonel is very much at odds with what I am supposed to represent. I am, as the heir of the Tyrells, supposed to involve myself in my family’s schemes, and desires, and wants. Support the crown, my sister as queen, allow my grandmother to attach myself to some young woman of good birth and fortune. And yet? I find myself believing in the rebellion. I have seen the suffering of the poor. I have seen my dynasty ignore such suffering in a most callous and careless way. I am a witness to wrong, every day, even as I try and draw myself back from the intrigue of Highgarden. I study. I write. I learn. I strive to be a better man. And yet, when I look upon myself, I see nothing but the heir to corruption and decadence.”

 

“Silly boy,” murmured Martell, overfond and warm and gently affronted. He leaned against a decorated pole holding the tent canopy aloft, his arrival as silent as the footpad of a kitten. “You are more. Do I not tell you often enough?”

 

“But here I can prove it, Oberyn! I might not be able to fight, not with this leg, but I can assist the Colonel if he will have me? I write reasonably well, I have many links to other families. Perhaps if the Tyrell name is used for good, perhaps I can redeem us? To spread the word of the true rebellion, of the nobility of the enterprise? I would, of course, break my family in two, but to rebuild in the cause of good, one often has to destroy.” The boy, Seaworth considered, was idealistic and callow, but was there was a veracity to his words? If well-liked, sensible, eminently respected Tyrell spoke out for the Parliamentarians, then surely that would win the support of the wavering and the quietly radical?

 

“You have a point, my lord. Would you like me to mention your request to Colonel Baratheon?”

 

“Yes, if you would. Please.” He looked curiously shy, eyes darting towards Martell, who grinned broadly.  

 

“I believe my Tyrell is nervous of the Colonel. Perhaps meeting a hero is intimidating, Willas? You were not intimidated by me. I believe I am jealous.” The words rang oddly true, even as a jest; the malevolence towards Baratheon was, perhaps, explained a little by the hero-worship of the Tyrell boy. Green envy inhabiting the Red Viper? Martell did not wish those pretty hazel eyes focussed upon anyone other than himself?

 

“You broke my leg. How can a man be afraid after such an impactful introduction?” The grin was returned, albeit tiredly, and Martell stepped forward to tuck blankets in and pump pillows. He brushed the back of his hand against the younger man’s forehead and tutted, muttering darkly about fever and chill and sickness.

 

“And it haunts my days, dear friend. Now sleep. Properly this time. I shall remove Captain Seaworth and accompany him to his own tent.”

 

* * *

  
  
The damp briskness of an early spring evening scrimmed their bones as the men trudged across doughy earth. Seaworth wrapped his coat tighter about his torso. Martell must be so cold, being so used to the balmy heat of Dorne, though he seemed as if the change of climate did not affect. Even now the camp remained busy; never a silent moment when war was to be had. He cheerfully hailed passing men, returned tilts of hats and quiet greetings. Seaworth proved popular enough, he knew he was seen as an honest, salt-of-the-earth sort who listened to anyone from peasant to king. The vital link between Baratheon and the other men. Those with problems came to Seaworth. He put them before the Colonel. That was the matter of things. That was how things were done.

 

“The Colonel asked me to give this to you, my lord.” The letter was sealed with a yellow wax, imprinted with the Baratheon signet of the rearing stag. Martell took it and, without opening, tucked it into his tunic.  

 

“He mourns his brother? He seems sore when his brother is insulted.”

 

“They were never close,” Seaworth explained. “Renly was everything that the Colonel is not; quite handsome, excellent with the men, personable. The inspirational sort that serves as a figurehead and a rallying point. And, as brothers do, the popular one teases the dour. But as blood, they protected each other fiercely. Stannis,” and the use of the name was deliberate denote the equality between the two commanders, “never really understood Renly. He is a man driven by logic, a sense of fairness and decency.”

 

“Is it true he took your fingers for your crimes? When it was you who rescued him?” They paused beneath a spreading oak to catch breath in the frigid air, almost companionably shoulder-to-shoulder. Seaworth flexed his hand, showing the other the shortened tips. The digits ended square-scarred just about upon the first knuckle. A sharp cleaver and a determined Baratheon had allowed the severing to be fairly neat. Sometimes, in that vague soft landscape between sleep and awake, Seaworth’s dreaming minded convinced the man the tips still remained attached.

 

“Aye, it is. Justice served, and the Seven know I deserved it.”

 

Martell watched him, half-in shadow, unreadable. “A man who is loyal to the one that took his fingers. The good Colonel must have redeeming qualities. Not that I have seen such.”

 

Seaworth seized his chance. Perhaps the apology within the prince’s pocket would in some way soothe, but if his words could coddle and settle? If he could help? “He is just, and strong, and he believes in his cause. Please, I beg, do not judge the man until you know him more deeply, Prince Oberyn, until you have seen his capabilities. When this is over, when we _win,_ the Colonel has told me in confidence that he does not wish to be crowned. He will lead of course, and he will protect the realm, but he will never be king.” Aware of Martell’s desire to ask the obvious question, the captain forged onward. “One of the pillars of this war is to destroy the monarchy as it stands. Why rebuild the effigy once more, with just the different face? Change is needed, Prince Oberyn. Others would kill the king, take the crown, and continue the status quo, but my lord Baratheon is a man of his word. A country of tolerance, and decency, and the opportunity for the least of smugglers to rise through merit, not wealth or name. A country without a king ruled by a man who refuses to be king. Is this not a noble goal? Does it not betray a morality that can only be admired?”

 

“You sound like Willas.” He brought a long clay pipe from his pocket, scratching a spark upon an most elaborate silver-cased tinderbox and lighting the tobacco wad within the stained cup. “Naive also, is my sweet boy. You believe a man who has power will refuse a crown? I hope your Colonel is true. For your sake. You are a good man. I would not wish you pain though I doubt his intentions. But your enthusiasm and loyalty is becoming! If I had a hundred men such as you, I should conquer the world. Baratheon is very lucky to have you at his side-”

 

A boy, the same little drummer lad that Baratheon used as a messenger, came bursting from the gloom and sprinting towards them. He was a pale, dark-haired slip of a thing, tending towards the vaguely equine about the mouth.

 

“Sir! Sir...fuck Stupid buggering hole!” Finding a rabbit burrow with a foot and tumbling down, dragging himself up, the boy was even more filthy than before. “Sir!”

 

“Yes, Arry?”

 

“The Covenanter has returned!”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Historical Bit:**
> 
> _Today's subject: Prince Rupert of the Rhine_
> 
>  Prince Rupert, Count Palatine of the Rhine, Duke of Cumberland and nephew of Charles I was the most dashing Cavalier of the Royalist forces. He was also played by Harry Lloyd (Viserys Targaryen) in the 2008 film _The Devil's Whore_ , which adds a certain neatness. Becoming a soldier aged just fourteen, ending up imprisoned by the Austrians during the Thirty Years War, he grew to become the foremost of the Royalist commanders during the English Civil War. Handsome, elegant, industrious, possessing a certain eccentricity, and fiercely intelligent - his contemporaries referred to him as _the Philosophical Warrior_ \- he dominated European warfare for many decades, fighting for France and Germany during the rule of Cromwell, and n England after the Restoration, as a commander of men in both the army and navy. Perhaps he could be seen, especially as his youthful impetuosity lessened with age, as the foremost of English commanders, especially after the return of the monarchy in 1660. He was a man of many talents, and was an active member of the Royal Society.
> 
> He also owned a white poodle called Boye, and the dog accompanied him upon the battlefield. This gave rise to accusations of witchcraft, and the creature being a familiar sent by Satan. This was not helped by also owning a monkey. As an avid hater of monkeys (creepy things), I can see why someone would be weirded out when one appeared on a battlefield.
> 
> Rupert never married, but enjoyed the companionship of attractive and nubile women as many of his generation did. When he died, his fortune was left to his mistress and their illegitimate daughter, Ruperta.
> 
> Oberyn has something of the Rupert about him, hence my little lecture. Physically I would say that Oberyn's moustache (which is seemingly attracting a cultish following of it's own these days) is based upon a Honthorst painting of [Rupert](http://images.npg.org.uk/800_800/0/3/mw05503.jpg) that can be found in the National Portrait Gallery, London. If you are interested in the history of facial hair (and it is fascinating) there are a goodly amount of cited articles about the rise and fall and rise again of the bearded.


	3. Davos III

* * *

 

The Covenanter slumped upon the stool, elbows resting upon the war table, head bowed. He looked exhausted, stank of horse and was liberally spattered in mud, but the sardonic grimness in his dark eyes still remained. Baratheon thumbed through the sheaf of papers the man had returned with. They would soon be piles, of importance, or subject, in the meticulous system that the Colonel employed. A man of organisation, he eschewed sloppy paperwork, even in the field of war.

 

“Can’t a man have a drink?” Massive shoulders rose and fell, the Scotsman’s rasping breath harsh within the confines of the tent. It seemed almost as if he had run all the way from the north rather than forcing his vicious black charger across difficult terrain. The melted-wax scarring disfiguring his beard-scruffed cheek appeared livid in the low candlelight, dark lank hair lay greasy and overly-long down the bull-like neck. Not a prize, this Covenanter, even to the strumpets following the Parliamentarian camp. Too intimidating and ugly, brutally honest and frighteningly strong. 

 

“Seaworth, get Clegane some wine.” When overly-involved with reports, the Colonel took to almost absent-mindedly firing commands. The Captain did not mind; the great wheels within Baratheon’s brain churned, and plotted, and arranged troops across counties. Such was the speed of the man’s reasoning that any other person would only just be considering the physical make-up of the armies themselves within the same timeframe. A frightening genius, a sense forged for war. Sometimes, when all was quiet and the Colonel slumbered and Seaworth had a rare moment to himself, he contemplated what would happen when there was no fighting. What would that brilliant mind turn towards? Could a man who revelled in battle, who believed in the cleansing and purifying tide of war, truly be at peace with peace?

 

A tankard poured and presented, and the Covenanter tipped the entire lot down his broad throat with an almost contemptuous ease.

 

Clegane, the Hound, the least of Covenanters. He swore, and drank, and whored with the more desperate of the camp followers. Loyal, yes, perhaps as trusted as Seaworth in his way - there needed to be a certain regard, the Captain supposed, for the lone figure who couriered Baratheon’s orders to the northern forces and back. Others rode more swiftly, others fought with more precision, but the thundering hooves of the war charger Stranger, and the notched Claymore upon the fellow’s massive broad back, meant that only fools dare attack the man. He had trained Stranger to fight, to crush skulls and savage with teeth and feet. And those scars. Those hideous, disfiguring scars.

 

“Ned Stark is dead?” 

 

Seaworth froze, stomach clenching with a frozen horror. The northern commander. Dead? It could not be, it must be mere rumour! Honourable Stark, with his traditions and a loving wife, an array of handsome children, a man full of life and generosity; such a lord could not have perished! For all his calm sense, Eddard fought well in the rough way of the northerners, wielding his greatsword Ice and bringing justice to counties where lawlessness attempted to overrule Stark authority. He beheaded outlaws himself. He was respected by all, though there were those - the sorts who played games for thrones and delighted in intrigue - who thought the man foolish in his simple goodness. 

 

“Aye. Some shit slit his throat.” The Covenanter held the tankard out for more wine, which Seaworth wordlessly poured. “And his wife. She should never have been in camp, stupid bitch.”

 

If this was anyone else, Baratheon would have told them, sharply, to respect their betters and the dead. Clegane, who risked his life constantly for little reward, was allowed a certain laxity. Who else could plough through enemy lines like some sort of battering ram? Who else had such a death wish? To the Covenanter’s credit, he supposed, Clegane did truly hate everyone; his ire was not restricted to an unlucky few. Something rather democratic in his loathing.

 

“The boys?” Baratheon wrote as he listened, altering and planning and changing tactics with the slash of his quill pen.

 

“The ginger haired cunt has taken Ned’s place. He’s too fucking young, Colonel. Ideas are good but he’s bloody impulsive. He’ll get them all slaughtered within a month. The little bastard has buggered off to the Night’s Watch, be amongst the Crows, said something about asking for their involvement. Shows some sort of strategy I suppose, might be useful having Castle Black stand for us.”

 

The Colonel looked up idly, mind still racing and pen still scratching upon the parchment . “It is where he should have been to start; bastards are nothing but trouble. Ned Stark always meant for him to go, and yet it is only the father’s death that has pressed the son into action. You will need to meet with them, of course.”

 

“Of course.” Grunting. “I’ll try to be polite.”

 

“It would be appreciated.”

 

“Leaves an issue though, Colonel.” Baratheon was the one person to whom the Hound was vaguely polite, mostly, Seaworth knew, because Clegane liked being under the command of someone possessing a modicum of competence. They respected each other, in their way, even if the differing personalities did, on occasion, clash. They had not tried to kill each other. Not yet, at least.

 

“Yes, Clegane?”

 

“Winterfell.”

 

Shit. The great fortress of the North, the slumbering giant of Yorkshire gritstone alone and desolate upon the great moors. The Lannisters, aware of the deaths of Ned and Cat, would turn their attentions to besieging the castle. If they did not, they were more foolish than could have been expected, and Tywin Lannister was no fool. Would even a skeleton staff remain? With the eldest boy enlisted, and Jon the Bastard flown north to beg the help of the Night’s Watch against the tyranny of the throne, all that remained to protect the ancestral key to the north would be the Stark children. Baratheon sighed deeply, eyes closing. He understood, so obviously, what the fall of the citadel would mean. The collapse of the north. An army of Lions and Roses between the Baratheon and the Covenanter forces. Their might would be split in twain, and even if the Scots harried from the rear, the inexorable march of vast bulk of the Royalist forces would smash into the smaller rebel army.

 

“What resources does Winterfell have? Did Ned ever say?”

 

“The wife did.” The dislike for the proper, elegant Catelyn Stark was absolute. “Roderick Cassell and a couple lads, a few house servants, some grooms and the like. A cook. One or two ladies’ maids. Just enough to keep the castle running and the children fed.”

 

“So they are still there? The children, I mean.” Davos could not help himself, could not stop himself from speaking. The thought of the poor young Stark children being swept into this, being captured or worse? A thick, sticky dread twisted. War turned noble men into blinded savages. War drove sense from the heads of the greatest of minds when faced with victory. Within the Baratheon armies, and those of the north, dishonour and murder and rapine - whether of soldiers, women, or others - were punishable by death if circumstances demanded. There were tales of the viciousness of the Royalists, who seemingly held lesser morals. The king himself, it was said, shared in the bloodthirsty sadism. Pure conjecture, Seaworth prayed. 

 

“Aye, poor wee bairns. Sitting there, pretty as you like, just waiting. We’re not sure if messengers have even made it through to give any news of war and the deaths of the parents.” Even worse. If no warning made it to the castle? No preparations made. No stockpiles. No villagers brought within the safer curtain walls. No one would know until the first roar of the cannon, and the first missive requesting surrender. And, more worryingly if the brothers were elsewhere, the face of Winterfell would rest upon-?

 

The girl, he remembered, was too pretty for her own good, but mostly innocent of the fact. A northern upbringing of sense and tradition could do that to any person. She was Robert’s god-child, betrothed to Joffrey before the old king’s death and the promise of an more advantageous Tyrell match sent the girl back north once more. She had been about thirteen the last time Seaworth saw her, on a rare visit to court by the Colonel and his retinue. Red hair simply plaited about her fine-boned face, tall and willowy form suggesting a gentle blossoming towards womanhood, she was autumn in springtime and garnet-lovely. In her pale grey silks and velvets, with her fire-blazing hair and wide blue eyes, she had drawn the attention of several, including the captain’s’ fifth son, Devan.

 

“I know she is a great lady, Dad,” he said, cheerfully, “but can a squire not make eyes still?”

 

Sansa Stark had no idea of warfare, or siege, or rations. Could she even hold a dagger in hands made for embroidery? Born during the peace between rebellions, she had wanted for nothing. She craved pretty gowns, and poems of courtly love, and dreamed of a perfect and handsome husband who would give her the world. And this was the Stark who was to hold Winterfell? A soft girl, dazzled with southern ways and gentility, the castellan of the greatest of the northern fortresses?

 

“You will go to Winterfell,” Baratheon said, flatly. “Jon Snow will speak with the Crows, you need not visit. This is more important. If the north is lost, then we are done for. I trust you know where you are headed?”

 

Clegane nodded. “Can a man sleep a while first? Horse needs rest, we’re both pretty fucked.”

 

“If you must.” Baratheon dismissed him curtly, settling once more into the endless paperwork.

 

* * *

 

Arry glared at Colonel Baratheon, and Seaworth attempted to not burst with laughter. The boy, barely twelve if a day, all crossed arms and a a peevishly stubborn expression, was standing up to his master with a most impressive fortitude. As always, the Colonel had no idea of what to do. Children confused him.

 

“I’m going with the Covenanter, you can’t stop me! I know he’s riding for Winterfell.”

 

“Little ears,” the Colonel muttered, “should remain deaf.”

 

“I can ride and fight! I’m good at fighting, better than most of your bloody useless squires.” He spat neatly upon the straw, contempt rivalling Clegane’s. “I’ve got a sword, and I’m going north with the Hound.”

 

“And has he said you can?” Baratheon addressed children in an overly-grave manner, unsure as how to properly communicate with those who had not yet developed adult sensibilities. Even dear Shireen, the apple of Seaworth’s eye now his lads had mostly flown the nests to captain and crew their own ships, was talked at as such. She bore that with a sweetness that belied her parentage.

 

“Don’t care.”

 

“You should care, Arry.” Seaworth decided to take pity on his ruffled leader who was scrabbling for words when faced with such childish mulishness. “What if Clegane abandons you somewhere, or you find yourselves in the middle of the Lannister army? He’ll have to worry about keeping you both safe. And why do you want to go North in the first place?”

 

“S’where I’m from. Got some family there.” Curiously vulnerable and aching, those words. The boy wished to go home. No one was quite sure where Arry had appeared from, or who he belonged to. One day he was there, scruffy and muddy and foul-mouthed, brandishing a sword that fit his diminutive frame. No one claimed him, so Seaworth put him to work as a drummer and messenger. Baratheon had admitted once that the child was his favourite, amongst all of the youngsters within the ranks, purely because he acted in a manner that was more understandable. The Colonel was more at ease with swearing and a boy who acted the soldier.

 

“Have you even asked Clegane?”

 

The crossed arms tightened, the pout deepened, and Seaworth shook his head. “Come on, you filthy little tyke. You’ll never know until you ask the man, will you?” Grasping a hand heavily ingrained with who knew what, he dragged Arry across the camp to where Clegane lurked, making his final preparation. Stranger snapped, eyes rolling, and was rewarded with a cuff to the rump by an overly-large hand.

 

“What have you got to say to Clegane?”

 

Arry bristled, before launching in. “I’m coming north with you. Stannis said!”

 

“No he did not, Arry, and remember your manners. That’s the Colonel to you.”

 

“But you call him Stannis!” the child retorted, and Seaworth wondered how such a sneakily clever boy could have just suddenly appeared. Whoever bred him did not instill any sort of manner, but the cunning was impressive in a way. It was becoming increasingly obvious that young Arry lurked at tent flaps and stored information like a facecloth soaked water. Who knew what the boy had heard? Perhaps there was a future for the child as a spy; no one considered a grubby little lad, after all. He decided to broach the subject with Baratheon later, when the good Colonel had recovered from his ordeal at the hands of this incaltricent youngling.

 

Clegane caught Seaworth’s eye, then glared at Arry.

 

“You’re staying here, you little shit. Now piss off, before Stranger decides he needs to kick your face from your skull.” Tightening the girths, checking the saddlebags one more time, Clegane hauled himself upon the huge black destrier. All dark; horse, expression, leather armour, steel accoutrement, even the Claymore. No metal shone, all was dulled for night-time riding and designed not to draw attention under moonlight. He was intimidating. Seaworth was rather relieved that the Covenanter has chosen the Baratheon cause. A brief, almost insulting nod, a spur to the flank of the Stranger, and he cantered away into the gathering twilight.

 

“Fuck you!” Snarling, Arry tried to twist away from Seaworth’s firm grip, but he wrestled the wriggling boy into a bearhug. “Fuck you, you Scotch cunt! Fuck you in the arse, you fucker! I’ll have y-”

 

“Enough.” The Captain’s tone, tending towards the strict and paternal, silenced the child mid-sentence. “Enough Arry. I promise you that I will take you north when we can. But you must hush.” The boy stiffened, and then collapsed against Seaworth’s reassuring chest, sobbing his little heart out. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Historical Bit:**
> 
> _Today's Subject: The Covenanters_
> 
> So, what is a Covenanter I hear you cry! 
> 
> This might take a while. Settle in, we're talking...religion.
> 
> The Protestant Reformation taking place within parts of Europe in the mid 1500's affected Scotland also. Scotland was a strange case; nominally Protestant but under the rule of the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots. By 1560 the Parliament decided to formally reform faith within Scotland, and asked leading reformers such as John Knox (well known for his pamphlet regarding _The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstruous Regiment of Women_ ) and several other men called John to prepare a Confession of Faith, renouncing Catholicism and implementing a more Presbyterian or Calvinist faith. This took a mere four days to create, and was approved by Parliament in the same year. It was, however, not ratified by the monarch until 1567, when Mary had been ousted by her son, James VI (also James I of England, father of Charles I), who had been brought up Protestant. Mary fled to England where she was imprisoned by her cousin, Elizabeth I (Good Queen Bess), and she was eventually executed in 1587 due to an alleged role in a Catholic plot against Elizabeth herself.
> 
> Covenanters were Presbyterians who bound themselves to maintain Presbyterian doctrine and religion as the sole faith in Scotland. Just as Moses and the Israelites promised to enter a Covenant with God through living by the Ten Commandments (hence the Ark of the Covenant - Covenant means 'promise' or 'agreement') so did the Covenanters. In 1580 they drew up a new Covenant, based upon the 1560 Confession of Faith. It was accepted by the Kirk in Scotland, and the King, and therefore became the basis of faith within the country. 
> 
> 1637\. Charles I was king of both England and Scotland, though Scotland remained a separate entity for the most part. Having been brought up in England, he wished the liturgies and practices of the Church of England to be imposed upon the Kirk. The two Churches were fundamentally different; the Scottish Kirk advocated a more austere path compared to the 'softer' religion of the English. There was rioting, mostly led by the common people, and a new National Covenant was created in 1638. It was signed in public by the people in Greyfriar's Kirkyard, and copies sent across Scotland to other churches for more people to sign. In effect, it was a mass petition showing the unwillingness of the Scots to give up their own religion and take up the tenets of a foreign faith. The Covenant was adopted by a heavily pro-Covenanter Assembly in 1640.
> 
> In England, the Civil War broke out. Charles I decided to call upon his 'Irish troops', and there were fears by the Protestant English that these new regiments comprised of Catholics. The Covenanters therefore offered their support to the Parliamentarians to battle this 'popist' threat, and, in return, the religious freedom of Scotland would be assured. The agreement between the Parliamentarians and the Covenanters became known as the Solemn League and Covenant.


	4. Clegane I

* * *

 

 

The ride north was, as ever, an arduous and dangerous careen through moorland, bog, and Royalist support. He rode by night mostly, blending in shadows with only his pale Scottish skin and the foam at Stranger’s lips standing stark from the black canvas. Striking northwest from the Baratheon camp near Macclesfield, he skirted the wilderness of the mountains for the most part. If necessary, Clegane put his heels to Stranger’s heaving ribs and took to the Peaks, soaring high above any pursuit; for him, a Scotsman born betwixt the genteel lowlands and the vast nothing of the Highlands, rough terrain held little fear.

 

Sandor Clegane respected very few, liked even fewer, and was terrified by only one.

 

That man? Fashioning himself the Mountain that Rides, the notorious Highland outlaw - which was to start with an entirely inaccurate description, and irked the Covenanter more than it should, but the public demanded a romance behind the hideous reality - Gregor Clegane. Knight of Fang Tower, head of House Clegane. The Mad Dog of War. The fury of the Lannisters. Many named, but Sandor knew him by just one title; brother.

 

A man wanted in Scotland for a myriad of crimes but in England where Tywin Lannister held his leash, the eldest Clegane was legend. A raping murdering thug of a man, who relished torture and death, he wielded the family Claymore with one ham-like hand and used the other to pulverise bone and flesh with bare knuckles. The merest glimpse of the Clegane family plaid, the gold and black of a once small but loyal house, placed dread into hearts.

 

Clegane himself eschewed the tradition of plaids. He wore simple black leathers and soft woollen shirts of the same hue, all as dark and forbidding as the man himself. Why would he display airs and graces? Dress a pig in a crown, and it still remained a swine. He could wear the finest clothes royalty could afford, and the world would still be sickened by the scars twisting his mouth and face.

 

Still northwest, and then toward Halifax; a centrepiece of gibbets and tenterframes draped with fullered kersey. For once there were no heads of the decapitated on display, just a light drizzle and the usual gloom. A pause for Stranger to drink and feed, for Clegane to piss out the sour red he drank to dull the aching fatigue of the gallop north, and then ever onwards. Leeds bustled even at night, and he edged about the market town. Even here, even in counties true to the Starks and the Parliamentarians, there still lingered pockets of resistance. Rumour flew of upcoming battles, of marching Royalists, of troops headed by the bastard boy-king and his sister-fucking Uncle/Father.

 

If he were to ride straight for Winterfell, they would have turned true north and picked their way across the endless moorland, through desolation wrought by nature herself. The saddlebags stuffed with Baratheon’s orders to his armies in the north meant sojourn to the Stark camp near the city of York.

 

* * *

 

“Theon has gone missing. A week ago.” Rob Stark never ceased from stroking the sleek fur of his direwolf. Grey Wind regarded Clegane with calm over-intelligence and the man had the oddest sensation of two sets of eyes peering at him from the amber depths of the beast. “He decided to scout to the west, and he hasn’t returned. The men who have searched for him report nothing found.”

 

The Covenanter did not care that the Stark boy’s friend had probably slithered back to the hellhole safety of Mann. White-livered was Theon, for all of his splendid bluster. Every single one of those salted islanders tended towards the strange, no doubt some reaction of Celtic and Viking blood colliding and breeding a most singular people. Pirates and smugglers to a Manxman, they rebelled and spoke a strange bastardized Gaelic tongue and worshipped a drowned god that lived beneath the stormy waves. A lawless and harsh people, where women could rise to be more than brood mares and marriage tokens, men finger danced and threw axes at each other in sport. The Old Ways, reaving and raiding, long banned, still lived in heart and mind. Greyjoy, sly and callow and brought up as a ward of Winterfell, who smiled and flirted and fluttered those long sooty eyelashes, seemed unlike his warlike brethren. Too soft, too northern, not Ironborn enough. Even if the Starks bred and encouraged fine soldiers, and yes, Greyjoy had grown to handle a sword well enough, nothing compared to the fury of the Manx.

 

“Probably fell off his horse and broke his neck. Squids cannot ride.” Clegane could but hope. Theon Greyjoy was little more than a polyp, a nothing, a distraction for Robb, a slippery eel of a youth. Never trust an Ironborn. Especially a clever one with a taste for manipulation and a smirking handsome face. The Covenanter had little time for children playing at war, even if Stark proved quite talented as a commander. His unorthodox approach, almost guerilla-like and based heavily on local knowledge of terrain and weather conditions, proved highly useful. Baratheon sent orders, and young Robb enacted what was requested in his own inimitable way. His uncle, The Blackfish, displayed the same usefulness upon the field of battle. Perhaps Tully blood was a boon; Robb’s father had been a little less inventive, a little more staid.

 

Stark could be read like a ledger, annoyance flitting across knitted eyebrows; he lacked the sophistication needed to hide emotion, not yet able to conceal and smile and flatter. A clever tactician he may be, but a politician he was not. The north did not raise statesmen. Ruddy honesty and difficult conditions encouraged a man to fight and not parlay. “Theon is a decent horseman.”

 

“For a mollusc.”

 

Frustration gave way to obvious dislike. Stark resembled his mother closely in colouring; all chestnut curls and fair, freckled skin, wide Tully eyes, a certain way of wrinkling his nose when he tried to think. Catelyn may have been as cold as Winterfell and twice as haughty, but Clegane would have given her a good seeing to. If she had asked nicely. Other men stated that the more disdainful a woman, the more wild they seemed within the bed chamber. As he had never lain with a wench without paying, the Covenanter did not know if this was a truth, but perhaps those who kept their emotions tightly bound within did, when tested, explode with some great passion?

 

The Covenanter dropped a mess of correspondence upon Stark’s war table, and helped himself to a tankard of heavy Yorkshire porter. No Seaworth to pour here. Usually Greyjoy would lurk and comment in that half-seductive half-mocking way, but the little scrote was thankfully indisposed. If he had been eaten by bears then the world would have improved, just a little. Stark bared his teeth in thanks and began to scuffle through the parchments. Clegane had purposely muddled them. Sod anyone apart from Baratheon, and therefore to some extent, Seaworth. Sod the world. If his presence made others uncomfortable, then so be it.

 

“The Colonel wants me to travel to Winterfell. Your bastard brother can do what’s needed at Castle Black, and fuck the Crows.” The porter was rich and thick and hit some needy spot. The north was a barren wasteland, but the beer was heady and goodly strong.

 

“I suppose if anyone is to get through, you will. Others have not returned. I told them they needed to, but they have not. I fear something terrible has happened to them all, but you-.” Faint praise indeed, forced through gritted teeth. It cheered Clegane to see his effectiveness being grudgingly admitted. Watching a person vacillate between loathing and appreciation was oddly thrilling.

 

Stark paused, seemed to shake himself, passing a hand across his forehead as the grief haunting his handsome features deepened. “My sister needs to know all of what has happened. I am afraid that they will find out themselves only when half of the Royalist army camp the front wall of Winterfell. And she must know about-” Robb swallowed, misty eyes slipping closed. The death of his parents must have rent deep. It must be hard for those who cared about their family, who had others they held in high regard, to deal with losing them. Clegane, lonely and friendless, considered himself lucky in some regard. The death of his small sister marked very last time he had cared about another person. Stark had executed the assassin himself, raising his father’s Damascus folded sword and removing the woman’s shrieking head with a swing of broad shoulders and a spattering arc of red. In that moment, when blood pooled under the block and the corpse slumped, the youth looked ancient and broken and truly lost. Poor bugger. Still, Clegane had been twelve when he had first taken a man’s life. War might be the making of the boy. Take his mind away from wallowing in grief.

 

”I will tell them. Some poor cunt has to.” Children playing at war never expected the realities. Death. Blood. Loss. An aching chasm of despair in seeing good, strong, hearty men struck down by camp fever or starvation or a myriad of other pointless deaths. Battle killed fewer than disease. There was no glory in shitting yourself to death in a rancid field two hundred miles from where your beloved grew old and sick with waiting. You would die, she would pine or move along to another available and more importantly not dead man. Just the impact of a life not lived, a wasted existence, of being forgotten when that lifespark just blinked out without any ceremony or care.

 

“You have my thanks, Clegane.” That, at least, seemed genuine. “I-if you could possibly remain with my sister and brothers, until we can come to Winterfell? I know I ask much, but you- Damn it all, Clegane! I have lost my parents, my youngest sister is missing, now Theon has gone. I cannot lose anyone else, or I will run mad!” Broken. Stark had fractured. Just him and Clegane in one small room, and the faintest hope that his siblings may live through the war, and the boy had shattered into tiny aching pieces. Voice raw, Robb reached out and grasped the Covenanter’s thick shoulder, fingers digging painfully into leather and corded muscle. Desperate, wild-eyed, he  trembled. “You are the most loyal man that Colonel Baratheon has. He tells me of your bravery, even if you are the most vile-tongued bastard placed upon this earth, even if you hate us all and we hate you. With you at Winterfell, we may just have a chance, Clegane! Lannister and his warrior woman are leading a detachment north, they mean to siege. What can my sister do with an old man, some stable boys, and a maid or two? If you are there-” 

 

Clegane felt rather embarrassed for the young man.

 

“Fuck’s sake, Stark, I’ll go and I’ll stay. Just sit your arse the fuck down and have a drink.” Peeling the frightened boy from his arm, he pushed Robb into a chair. Children had no place at war.

 

It only occurred to him, when blindingly drunk and fucking some whore who had spectacular breasts and scars down her back, that Jaime Lannister was the one heading for Winterfell.

 

Jaime. Fucking. Lannister.

 

Well, bollocks.

 

* * *

 

Stranger stamped a soup-plate hoof ill-temperedly and did not refrain from the usual attempted bite to Clegane’s ribs. Even the master was not sometimes spared the destrier’s foul mood, but a sharp smack to the black velvet muzzle with a clenched hand was enough to settle the horse into malcontent obedience. 

 

No rest for the wicked. It would be usual for man and beast to rest for perhaps four days, even a week, before riding out once more. The delay allowed reports to be written, information to be collated, the fatigue to drain and pains to mend. Stranger, massive and irritable, was immensely strong, but Clegane’s bulk and the difficulties of the journey meant that even this paragon of horseflesh needed to recover. Only two days after arriving at York he was being saddled to continue north, and the warhorse was unsparing in his obvious displeasure.

 

Robb Stark paced. The saddlebags contained sealed letters to his sister and Roderick Cassell. He had smiled greyish when telling Clegane that the contents were the same as he had written three times previously. He wrote with a neat hand, but without the floridity of someone more skilled in their lessons. Functional, rather like the Stark family themselves, and without pretension. Each missive, sealed with white wax and pressed with the Direwolf seal, lay heavy in the leather cases. The telling of death was a burden, making parchment more like lead than skin, weighing and dragging and black.

 

“You gave your oath, Clegane. You promised Stannis.”

 

“Aye, and I will not be breaking it, either.” Little shit, safe and sound in his camp now the watch had been doubled, doubting his word. The Covenanter was honourable enough when it was required by the Colonel, the one man he believed in implicitly. If it had just been the Stark boy who had told him to venture out into the moors and seek Winterfell, he may have laughed in his Tully face, told him that no death wish would force Clegane to ride towards a doomed fortress, and if he wanted his family to live then Stark should wed some available wee heiress with wide hips and fuck a child into her womb. 

 

Settling in the saddle was uncomfortable but not overly-sore. Muscle ached, yes, but dully, like a low buzz of nerve-endings and bruising over a slightly knocked knot of flesh. He had ridden in worse condition, bleeding and half-insensible, trusting Stranger to carry his ailing body through the battle lines and to the field hospital safely beyond. He was, he knew, overly-fond of his stallion; that natural dislike of mankind, combined with what he actually owed Stranger (his life, his sanity perhaps) and the certain understanding between the two outcasts, meant that they were well-suited. Both bore scars. Stranger, savage and wild and badly-treated and broken, had crushed the back of the last man who turned a whip upon him in anger. Just a mere colt when Clegane rescued him from being sold for dog meat, recognising a kindred spirit, they had witnessed so much together. In return, Stranger had saved him. Trust, often misplaced but never between the two, sealed them together in an oddly sentimental alliance.

 

“Please kiss Sansa for me. Tell her that I love her.” Robb clung to the Covenanter’s stirrup for a moment, before smacking Clegane upon the thigh. “Go. Ride fast, and true. Get through the lines and stay. That is all I ask.”

 

If the sister was as well-looking as the brother, she would indeed be a beauty.

 

Not that he cared. Ladies, with their simpering pretty ways and cattish manner hidden behind silks, shining hair and lovely faces. They either pitied or feared Clegane, and mostly he disgusted them. Some idly looked upon his body - brawny and strong and muscled under his stern clothing - and the possibilities seemed to please them for a moment before they observed the wreck of his face. Sluts and bitches, the lot of them. Perhaps in the dark they would not care, but he had a semblance of self-pride. Whores were different, at least the ones that laid with him. Coin allowed him to taste sweet fleshly pleasures. They acted, and caressed, purring filth into his ear as he pounded into their hot slick bodies. Both parties understood; a purely business transaction. The women seemed to enjoy his ministrations if the gasping and flushed cheeks indicated their peak. He even cared to use his tongue or fingers to return the pleasure they gave to him with cunt or mouth. Some called him skilled, though he understood the language of whorish flattery.

 

Nodding curtly at the young Stark, he gathered Stranger and cantered into the unknown, bleakness descending as he progressed north.

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Historical Bit:**
> 
> _Today's subject - The Isle of Man:_
> 
> The Isle of Man (or Mann) is a small island situated between England and Ireland. It is an island rich in history, and is also famous for the TT motorcycle races that are held every year. Mann has been owned by several nations over the years; Mercia (yay Mercia! It's where I live), the Vikings, Scotland, and then finally England. It is not officially part of Great Britain due to it's status as a self-governing crown dependency. It has it's own language, Manx, a branch of Goidelic Celtic and is more akin to Scottish Gaelic and Irish than the Southern Brythonic languages of Wales, Cornwall and Brittany. The parliament of Mann is called Tynwald, and was set up by the Vikings. It still exists, and is the oldest unbroken parliament in the world.
> 
> Mann was a centre of smuggling, wrecking, and many other types of piracy. Even as late as the 19th century smuggling was a hugely important business to the local economy. It was the Iron Islands of it's day, especially under Norse rule. These days much of the income is created by tourism - it's a lovely place to visit, I recommend it most highly. It is a strange place, as it seems to have taken bits of culture from Ireland, Scotland, England, and the Norse, and incorporated it into a truly unique culture.
> 
> Also, Thomas the Tank Engine takes place on the Island of Sodor; this is actually the Isle of Man. This is a hugely important fact to those of us who grew up on the Thomas programmes narrated by Ringo Starr.
> 
> Additional: The gibbet at Halifax was, in fact, a rudimentary guillotine. Hence decapitation.


	5. Clegane II

* * *

 

 

Blood exploded.

 

The world tasted copper and pink and snow-cold as Clegane fell. Above him someone harpy shrieked and he barked a confused, garbled challenge fuelled by habit than anything else, wordless and pained and dizzy. The very edges of everything fell to a dark mist. Narrowing. Tunnels and those maudlin tree-branch arches that wrapped about avenues. Pipework. Lead. Pinpricks of colour. Then? Then nothing. It beckoned. Soft and muddy shadow promised silence from the screaming nerve endings in his head and the execution drum-thudding of his deafening pulse. In quiet solitude of the dark he may sleep. But no. Wrong. Fuck! Scrabbling feebly at his belt, he found no dagger. The Claymore was gone. To fight or flee? He always fought. He should try. His arm wouldn’t listen now. Even when he snarled a silent curse. Move, fuck’s sake. Find something! Anything. Fist? Make a fist, damn you. His hand met frozen earth, slush. Ice. Refusing to even shiver.

 

The ground was piercing white and scarlet and too bright to see. Adding to the hurt, magnifying even. Closing his eyes? Good idea. Just for a moment. Rest for a moment, he lied to himself, then all will pass. 

 

A sharp kick to the ribs. Acid flared in his gullet and on his tongue.

 

Hoofbeats. Stranger? The Stranger?

 

Another voice then, lower and rougher and very sharp. Razor-blade angry. 

 

So very cold. 

 

Fuck the north.

 

* * *

 

Wide blue eyes. Rosewater and lavender. A voice like that of a sweet little bird singing a fearful carol.

  
  


* * *

  
  
Burning down his throat and he swallowed the brandy and they kept pouring it but when they dug into the destroyed flesh to find the musket ball he swore and vomited and thankfully knew nothing more.   
  


 

* * *

 

Whatever Clegane considered the afterlife to be, and his lip service to the Old faith did not often foster thoughts towards the realm of the Stranger, death did not include white woollen sheets and an ancient oak four poster bed. Death obviously encouraged a cosy room. A fire gently crackled in a soot-dark hearth, and the hangings about the bed frame consisted of an ancient but heavily worked velvet, embroidery dull pewter against the dusty fabrics. If the domain of those cursed by the Stranger did include a welcoming chamber, replete with a fat and foolishly young slumbering maester, then perhaps, Clegane muzzily decided, he should consider giving allegiance to the dark aspect himself. 

 

“Maester?”

 

The rotund youth made a sound reminiscent of a dozily contented badger refusing to wake.

 

He did not like maesters. Covenanters did not trust the servants of the Seven, and, even if maesters were not a religious order, their presence still spoke of southron tradition. This one wore modest enough black robes, and was perhaps of an age with Robb Stark. A doughy, round-faced boy with pink cheeks, mouth softly agape in sleep, he appeared slightly worried even in his repose. He still wore his chain of office; all dull and lifeless metal apart from the single links of silver and copper near his fat-fleshed throat.

 

Clegane grunted and reached out in an attempt to poke the youth awake, feeling the sewing at the wound in his shoulder tug. It held. Impressive. From what he recalled, and unwillingly at that, it had taken gouging about in the open wound to extract the lead ball from the toughened meat below. He’d thrown up with it all, the red wine and brandy he had been fed spilling like blood, and then Clegane had thankfully passed out for the second time.

 

“Maester!” Too much distance for an arm attached to a damaged shoulder.

 

A squeal from the young man, who half-fell from the wooden stool. Even in his fluttering he remained ruminant docile, cow-eyed.

 

“Oh, you’re awake! Oh, thank the Gods for that, Mr. Clegane. We thought you were a goner for a while there.” The boy’s hands were as soft and clammily plump as the rest of him, expertly checking for fever or heat about the heavy bandaging. A knowledgeable maester indeed, even if his chain spoke of few skills. Useful. “I’m Sam. Sam Tarly, I’m the Mae-”

 

“Aye. I gathered.”

 

“Oh. Sorry. Of course. Sorry. Would you like some water?” This Sam was a fusser, and a worrier, but his medical manner seemed proficient even if he acted the nervous school boy. “I should go and ask Mr. Snow, or Miss Stark to attend you. They wish to speak with you when you are feeling well enough, ser, but of course if you still ail, then I’ll-”

 

“Get me up, I’ll see them myself.” No woman would see Clegane lying a-bed in this way, clad in naught but his underclothing and the linen wraps covering his wound. He had pride, even when crusted with his own blood and filth matting his hair. A scrub at the basin, the maester could find a shirt and his breeches and boots, and then Miss Stark - bound to be Sansa, must be the lady of Winterfell, for there were no others of the surname in the north - may not be overly-disgusted. Of course the scars would sicken her. Not that it mattered. Women always shied and this was no elegant visit during peacetime, no niceties to be had within these walls. The girl should be thankful that some, like Colonel Baratheon, understood the Stark plight. Even if help possessed a destroyed face and grim stoicism, a damsel in distress could not afford to be precious when faced with such desperation. If Sansa Stark awaited a knight upon a silver charger, like most highborne women dreamed of, the child was to be thoroughly disappointed.   

 

Too long resting. His body, used to riding and sparring and fucking, protested. Muscles nagged as Clegane hauled himself to the edge of the straw mattress, a heavy pit gouging unpleasantly in his stomach. It must have been a day perhaps since he was shot, perhaps two? He was not even sure of that, it may have been far more. Enough brandy and sack had been tipped down his throat to drown the largest carthorse, but no bite of cheese or sip of broth.

 

“You shouldn’t move, ser, your shoulder! It was a horrid wound, and I had to get the ball out, so you must be wea-”

 

“Twas my shoulder, boy. My legs are fucking fine.” He stood, to demonstrate to this fat little fool that a man could walk easily enough after taking a musket ball, and the entire room tipped alarmingly. Hands grabbed, soft little starfishes of pale flesh, and Clegane muzzily found himself sitting upon the bed, head between his knees, taking deep breaths. No. Not the cleverest idea. Blood loss, damn it. Lack of food. Of course, he should have known. Happened before, would happen again. Quite an occupational hazard to one such as the Covenanter.

 

“Please,” Sam said, curiously understanding. “I will help you, Mr. Clegane, if you insist on going yourself. You have had a very trying week.”

 

“A whole cunting week?” 

 

The boy’s eyelashes flickered every time Clegane swore, a hectic pink staining his cheek, but he seemed to take the profanity upon the chin. Indeed, it seemed that Tarly was used to rough language and the bluster of warriors. This was not the sheltered maester he expected. Curious.

 

“What are you?”

 

“Just a Crow, ser, and a maester. Now, let me help you stand.”

 

A faint quirk of over-ripe lips. Woman’s lips. Probably a cocksucker like the rest of them in Castle Black.

* * *

 

Definitely a cocksucker. Probably a sodomite if the way the pretty Jon Snow looked at his fellow black-clad Night’s Watchman indicated anything. Seeing Tarly labouring under the weight and size of Clegane, the bastard rushed to assist his maester, settling the Covenanter into a high-backed spinning chair and quietly remonstrating with Sam for attempting to do too much after his bedside vigil.

 

“Jon, I am fine.” Very fond, rather shy, the merest trace of embarrassment. Snow straightened the chain about Tarly’s chubby neck, smoothing voluminous black robes with long pale fingers. “Really, truly, I promise I am.”

 

“You’re not used to carrying heavy things, you should have called me and I would have come. Next time, come and get me, yes?” Snow wore an intense look, and the black clothing of his station, as if they were branded upon his flesh. It seemed the bastard finally took the black as his father had desired for years. How strange that death could compel persons into roles and tasks that they perhaps did not even wish for. Colonel Baratheon heading the entire Parliamentarian army without the mercurial support of Renly. Robb Stark possibly becoming a man, the head of the ancient house of Stark, before his true time. War made men of some, women of others, and corpses of them all in the end.

 

“Have you told the girl yet?” A maid pushed a steaming mug of mulled wine into Clegane’s frozen hands, bobbed a curtsey, then covered his shoulders with a rough-spun blanket. The north was fucking cold, almost unnaturally so; snow still upon the ground in March. Even Edinburgh, where the Covenanter kept some rooms, felt positively balmy compared to this frigid ice house. He had once been told by a university man that settlements inland tended towards extremes, whilst those upon the shore were kept temperate by the sea. Which frankly was a right load of pish.

 

“I thought it best that the news came from Robb.” Snow ran his hand through his tangled curling hair. Cavalier hair. He had the sort of sullen passionate face that belonged in van Dyke paintings of beautiful young men in overly-elaborate hats. Eminently punchable. Probably wrote appalling poetry. “I knew he would write. It is not my place to say what happened. Robb is the head of the family now, it is his responsibility.”

 

“The letters are in the saddlebags. One from the Colonel, one from Stark.” 

 

“Your horse protected them quite impressively. One of the grooms is nursing a most impressive black eye.” Utterly deadpan. Snow either possessed the lack of humour that had been apparent in Ned Stark, or cultivated a rather more dark amusement. A heavy contrast to Tarly’s brightly comforting cheerfulness.

 

“Thank him for his sacrifice. And his stupidity. Least he still has teeth.”

 

The chamber, with the great black-stone carved fireplace and heavy oaken panelling, slate flooring and high hammer beamed roof, was ancient and dour in turn. Very northern. Portraits of dead Starks lined the walls, the furniture as utilitarian as expected. The only colour, glowing in the candlelight, lay across the dias at the rear of the hall; a thick Persian carpet draped over the high table. Even with the fire roaring, the room seemed barren and lifeless almost, those glassy deceased faces staring solemnly into nothing. The gloom deepened as snow beat remorselessly against the tiny lead-glazed diamond window panes. Again. Fuck the north. The spiced wine, welcome and heady, provided a little cheer at least. 

 

A creak, a door opening, and lavender and rosewater roiled across Clegane’s senses.

 

She was tall, and elegant, and so very beautiful. The jewel-like rug faded to ash as she stepped quietly across the flagstone floor towards the huddled group. Shadows danced and flitted, and as she stood before him, Clegane saw she balanced upon the knife-edge, the cusp, of being a woman. A certain softness remained in her cheeks, an adolescent curve to her shoulder, but half a year would see her full-grown and lovely and truly devastating. Her hair. Her eyes. 

 

Just her.

 

Never had a woman shocked the Covenanter; he had fucked pretty whores before, paid extra for the trauma they suffered for being with him. The Red Witch was glorious in that white-hot metalled way of hers, overly burning and almost too womanly. Intimidating. Cersei Lannister. Tales of Margaery Tyrell. This, however. This girl with her glorious eyes and long auburn hair, her milk-skin and innate  _ something _ . He sought for the word, stumbling, then finally grasping.

 

Innocence. Never had he seen someone so innocent. Sansa radiated virtue. Sheltered and petted and coddled. Protected from all, never suffering. A girl with her head no-doubt filled with romances, flowers, white knights upon white steeds. She probably believed in tales of Florian and Jonquil, wanting her own truly love even as the country burned about her ears. As a man used to women possessing sense and worldliness, to see someone so unspoiled and untouched was more than shocking.

 

And it was to be him, Clegane, that would hand Sansa the letter that would shatter her world.

 

“Lady Sansa.” Tarly had manners. High birth, possibly. The surname seemed familiar. “This is Mr. Clegane, Colonel Baratheon’s courier. Mr. Clegane, this is Lady Sansa.”

 

Of course her eyes scanned the ruin of his face, rent flesh made even more hideous by the firelight. As always that expression. He expected it, but watching the girl’s face tighten with fear and sympathy still stabbed, still stung. More than usual; he hated that a mere slip of a child could make him feel so damaged and, in turn, force him to want her so very much. Probably she had never seen a man maimed. Maybe she should see her dear father’s bloodless head, or her mother’s horrified frozen expression as they lowered her body into a hasty grave? That would stop the foolish little bitch from staring at a few scars. Fuck women. Fuck the lot of them.

 

Especially Sansa Stark, who made him feel all at once breathless and protective and angry, and as if he should be her black-clad man-at arms or sworn shield, or ravishing away her innocence against some moss-dripping wall as she sobbed his name in desperation. Fuck her, the Stark name, her naivety and her garnet-lovely beauty. This jewel locked in a forsaken keep in the north, polished by naivety and courtly romance, shining with charitable horror when she looked upon his scars? To have a young girl pity him, to look upon a man and see nothing but a face to pity. Perversity begged. Clegane wanted to grab her wrist, pull her close, force little Sansa to see what the viciousness of the world could do to a mere child by explaining, in agonising detail, how the melted ruin came to be. 

 

“It is a pleasure to meet you, ser.” How very fucking proper. Empty-headed bitch.

 

“I’m not a fucking ser.” Gruff, and bear-snarling, wanting to hurt. The girl’s Tully-blue eyes - she resembled her mother, but possessed an open straightforwardness that Cat Stark had hidden behind proper behaviour and rigid self-control - widened, navy in the firelight, and kept flickering to his cheek. “And you can stop your staring afore I box your ears. Wee carlich besom.”

 

“I-” Frightened, she looked helplessly at Snow. “I am sorry, s-. Mr. Clegane. Please, I did not mean to cause offence, or stare.” For a moment it seemed as if Sansa wished to say more, but instead she retreated to the kindly maester who offered her his seat upon the hearth. Her downcast face and tearful expression twisted pleasurably in his chest. The girl needed to be toughened. If Sansa Stark chose to live, she needed to break her genteel chains and be forged into something less malleable. 

 

“Sister, these letters were brought for you.” Snow looked grey-ish as the parchment was given to the girl, as she worked at the white wolf seal and smiled as she saw the blocky scrawl of her full brother’s hand. Of course Sansa should choose Robb’s words before that of the Colonel. Used to pretty sentiments and flatteries from her doting siblings, no doubt of that. Brothers had a way of loving that was all at once protective and indulgent and utterly adoring, even those who knew a little sister for so very few years.

 

The tender expression did not last. Even in this dull light Clegane could see her pupils dilate. One hand gripped at the fullness of those wide skirts, tangling helplessly into the woollen broadcloth, the other palsied and white-knuckled as she tried to understand the words writ so bold before her.

 

“Jon?” Piteous tiny voice. “Jon? Please. I-?”

 

Her brother, heart breaking because damn it all Ned was his father too even if his siblings seemingly forgot Jon’s heritage when it suited them, knelt at her side, pulling the girl into a shaking embrace. She closed her eyes so very tightly but even then tears gathered upon her long dark lashes. Pressing her mouth to Snow’s black-clad shoulder, a few hiccoughing whimpers escaped her trembling lips, and he held her carefully, as if Sansa were made from precious Delftware, or gaudy Maiolica. 

 

“You have to be strong, Sansa. For Father.” She tensed, suddenly frozen under his ministrations.

 

“You knew?” Mouse-like and tremulous, before she was fighting away from Snow, all hands and hair and ashy-cheeked betrayal. “You knew and you did not tell me! And Sam? Did Sam know?”

 

The maester and the Crow had the decency to look appalled at their complicity, and Jon did not flinch as his beloved sister, a flame-haired northern maid despite all of her southern niceties, slapped him across the face with all of her strength. Betrayal from a loved one, from one looked up to, worshipped. Clegane understood more than little Sansa Stark could ever imagine. She had curled her nails with the blow, blood-red welts gracing Jon’s pretty white cheek and slowly oozing.

 

“How could you?”

 

“It was for Robb to say-”

 

“You let me read my parent’s death in a letter. You let me read it and you knew, Jon. You knew they were dead for how long? Since you went to Castle Black and became a Crow? You did, didn’t you, and you didn’t even tell me!”

 

“They were my parents too, Sansa!” Two wolves, howling grief. 

 

The girl started forward, fists clenched, and the Covenanter knew that if no one intervened then they would tear each other apart with words and hate and heartache - or at least Sansa would devour her bastard brother. Snow seemed too overly-disgusted with what he had done to try to deny her biting and truthful words. The fat maester seemed stunned, though reached for a handkerchief and offered it to the bleeding Jon who clapped the sliver of silk to his wound.

 

Clegane rolled his eyes. Always him. Being loyal only to Baratheon and his own hide proved irksome in moments when two sides fought that did not concern him. For some odd reason an  expectation of the man wading between sparring parties had arisen, of Clegane halting matters before they grew too difficult to mend; size and reputation, he supposed. If the Colonel had not tasked him with keeping Winterfell from falling he would have settled back with his pewter pint pot and a pipe and watched the sibling war unfold to the bitter end. At least Sansa did not blame him for bearing the letters to Winterfell, and for some reason that seemed oddly important even if Clegane did not know why,

 

Putting his drink upon the stone mantle, straightening and working a crick from his neck with a snap of his head, the Covenanter took charge.

 

Sansa was curiously easy to lift, and he scooped her up with one brawny arm about the waist. She seemed hollow-boned and slender under the plumage of cloths and padding; squirming, still fighting, still snarling anger and pain before Clegane flexed his forearm just a little and she quietened as muscle shifted against the tightness of corseting and her gown. Blue eyes, still wet and horrified and so very incandescent, met steely-grey. If he shifted his gaze, just a fraction, oh Gods; the Covenanter almost groaned. How she breathed, that rapid breath and the decolletage of the bodice. Damnation below her long white throat. Her heaving breasts were lightly freckled, pale half-globes forced almost indecently upwards with their awkward embrace. Yes, she had just discovered the murder of her parents, but what was that to the man when a beautiful girl pressed against his torso, hair trailing flame, skin scented, ripe lips parted, eyes damp.

 

His mouth brushed the side of her temple, beard scratching over alabaster skin, and she shivered. 

 

Fuck.

 

She was the most beautiful, fragile creature, and he loathed her like he loathed all women, but-

 

“From Robb. He sends love. Wheest yersel’ hen, ma bonnie wee hen.” His Scots tended to shimmer sometimes, those rare occasions where he was content or pacifying, a low burring rumble of whisky-peat and heather honey and incomprehensibility.

 

She half-swooned against his chest, anger passing to weeping anguish. Her head rested over the burning wound, and in that moment where the world was just himself and Sansa, where he murmured soothing endearments in a language the girl did not understand and his bandages soaked her tears, Clegane felt no pain.

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Historical Bit:**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> _Today's Lesson - Scots. Or, why Sandor doesn't speak Gaelic:_
> 
>  
> 
> The Scots language (arguments are still underway to whether Scots is a language or a dialect, but there are possibly four dialects within the language itself) is still spoken in Scotland; much of the slang spoken in the country is indeed Scots. It is distinct from Scottish Gaelic as it is a Germanic language as opposed to the Celtic. The use of Scots versus Gaelic also shows a division between Highland and Lowland Scotland; Scots became the prestige language of the court, based in Edinburgh, Gaelic used by the clans and the commoners in the west and north. This meant that Scots was/is concentrated in the south, south east and eastern parts of Scotland including Orkney and Shetland, and parts of Northern Ireland due to the Plantation of Protestant Scottish to the area in the late 16th/early 17th centuries. 
> 
> The language arose from Northumbrian Old English, Northumbria owning the lands that became south east Scotland in the seventh century, and diverged from the original language with the influx of Middle English speakers in the 12th and 13th centuries. Like Middle English, Middle Scots borrowed from many languages including Gaelic, French, Latin, and the Scandinavian languages. The Middle Scots renaissance in the 15th-17th centuries saw large amounts of literature being produced, providing fascinating evidence for the use and growth of the language.
> 
> Robbie Burns wrote _'Auld Lang Syne'_ in Modern (post 1700) Scots. After the Act of Union joined England and Scotland (1707), English became the fashionable language of Scotland and Scots was considered a vulgar tongue. 
> 
> I am oddly interested in the language after studying it at university. St Andrews, my alma mater, was a centre of Middle Scots literature and still still promotes study today. To be honest, I was better at translating Scots than I was Old English. Not as impressive to quote though!


	6. Clegane III

* * *

 

 

Moss-green eyes set in a pointed elven face stared at Clegane unblinkingly, overly-familiar and rather knowing. The boy had appeared from what seemed nowhere, moving in the way of hunters or dreams; that quiet footfall never heard until sleep or death overtook. 

 

Winterfell collected the strange. None of the Stark children were entirely normal, which could be expected given the situation they found themselves in. Rickon, mostly feral, ran with the dire wolves and communicated in half-gesture half-speech, hair pouring over his face and teeth bared. Bran reminded the Covenanter of Willas Tyrell, though graver, quieter. He read, considered philosophy, understood warfare, lived with an obsessive intensity for knowledge that was most disconcerting in a twelve year old child. Sansa? Threw herself from grief to anger and now settled into an iron self-control that would have made her mother proud and horrified in turn. In one moment, with one heavy black-inked sentence upon creased parchment, the girl turned from a child into a young woman, eyes too tired for her fresh face and a spine so rigid that it could crack the ice forming upon Winterfell’s ten foot thick granite walls.

 

Snow and Tarly spent most of the day trying to make sense of anything, organising, rationing, finally falling into a coma-like tangled sleep. No one mentioned they shared a bed. No one cared.

 

“What?” Glaring. Whoever ran the armory in this bloody place neglected the weaponry in a criminal fashion. Dull-edged swords. Dented helms and shields. Clegane, frustrated and pissed-off with the entire enterprise - being locked in a fortress of the quietly insane, especially in a cold snap that seemed to want to devour them all, and with firewood scarcer than food - had taken it upon himself to man the rudimentary smithy. Beating the shit out of metal helped release the internal rage, kept his body mindful and toned. At least it meant some fucking heat. The coal bunker provided enough fuel for a little work each day. Clegane had never been taught, but natural strength and sheer bloody-mindedness meant he grit his teeth and learned with each fall of the hammer and ring of the anvil. Thank the Stranger, though he did not believe in Him, the musket ball had chosen his left shoulder to ruin. Shirtless and sweating, leather apron about his muscular hips, he pondered bringing the ball-pein down upon Jojen Reed’s Saxon blond head.

 

Was there a certain pride in being the most mad within an asylum? This fae creature seemed perfectly at ease with his innate oddness, embracing it in the way of the crannogmen of his home county. 

 

“What you wanting?” Another heft of the hammer, arm rippling and scars white-puckered in the hell-glow of the forge.

 

Jojen settled himself upon the smaller and unused anvil, neat and tucked in and half-froglike, ignoring the sparking metal three feet from his face. For someone who hailed from the sticky fen-lands of the Lincolnshire wastes, that gnat-infested bog at the best of times, he seemed to be unaffected by the cold but tended to lurk about the smithy when he was not with to Bran. The young Stark, overly-influenced by the Reed child; theirs was a strange friendship of minds more alike than was truly comfortable. Cassell swore to Clegane that Jojen was unnatural, some sort of green-seer or perhaps a witch, but with the queerness pervading Winterfell seemingly infecting the supposedly sensible castellan, the Covenanter silently mocked the old man’s words. Adherents to such were as foolish as the religion obsessives, the preachers who promised the End Times, the poor sods who believed purveyors of snake oil and sugar pills.

 

“He is sorry about shooting you.” Picking up a piece of steel stock, the boy examined the lightly rusting surface. 

 

“Who is?” More clanging, some healthy swearing. Currently the cuirass upon the anvil represented the ugly maw of Gregor. Yet again. The poor metal, possibly half-beaten to death, complained at each strike. 

 

“The cook.”

 

“Why the fuck did he shoot me? Not like one cunt’s going to storm an entire bastard castle.” How did Gage even know how to use a musket? Bloody fine shot for a man who scraped together stews and kneaded bread for a living. Made sense, however, that he had been the wielder of the musket; the man sported the remains of a goodly black eye, and embarrassedly refused to look at Clegane. Someone, probably Cassell, must have made the point of why a lone horseman flying no banner should not be shot very obvious. Probably with a fist.

 

Jojen shrugged like water, fluid and graceful and so very strange. “I do not know. Men fear what comes from Winter. A scarred wight in black, upon a dark horse, pounding through the snow. In dreams you are a man to fear, Sandor Clegane. In life also. A hound and a man and a weapon forged in fire.” 

 

The boy should be locked up safely in Bedlam with all the other lunatics. How the fuck did Jojen know his first name? Tarly or Snow must have been chattering like Crows; just like old crones those two. And the boy rambling on about dreaming. He did not need Jojen to remind him of the wee hours where he snatched sleep between patrols and watches. The less thought of dreams the better. Too many nights of blood and jealousy, burning and hatred, all wrapped around Sansa sodding Stark like a Grecian drape. Too often had he awoken, sheets sticking to his sweat-chilled flesh, the fading images of brimstone curled about beautiful naked red-haired women forcing him to take his arousal in hand even if horror tainted each stroke.

 

“It’s not winter, it’s almost fucking April.”

 

Those ancient fen-wet eyes were unblinking. For an instant they seemed even greener, emerald rather than the usual ferny hue. “It is Winter. Do you not feel it?”

 

“Piss off.” Jojen unnerved him. Anyway, thinking upon this, did Jon and Sam know his name? Always Mr. Clegane, or Clegane, or Hound with those two. No one here called him Sandor, or alluded to knowing. Fuck’s sake, man. He glared at himself internally, gave himself a sharp dig to the kidneys with metaphorical fingers. Nae gang gomeral; the madness would not take him too. Some poor soul needed to remain sane. Someone did know his name, that was the only explanation. Jojen Reed was no more green-seer than the Covenanter was High Septon of the Seven.

 

“Why do you work the forge when you fear the fire in your dreams?”

 

Clegane dropped the hammer.

 

Jojen tilted his head to one side, examining the man as if he were some fascinating medical specimen, and smiled in a very strange way indeed.

 

* * *

 

Sansa Stark had taken to wearing black, and in Clegane’s opinion it suited her more than fine brocade and silk. So very Stark, he supposed with a faint and half-bleak amusement, against that pearl-satin skin and glowing mane of hair. The gown she wore had been discovered in a long-neglected closet and once belonging to Catelyn; her mourning dress for the first Stark man she wed. How very aristocratic to marry the widow to the bereaved brother. He never understood the high nobility. Had Lady Stark ever compared them? Had sensible Cat closed her eyes as her supposedly beloved Ned bred yet another child within her and pretended the cock pounding away belonged to Brandon? No wonder the Stark children tended towards the eccentric considering the family that sired them. 

 

Her gown. His fevered dreams now centred about black-clad sirens, succubi wreathed in darkness, always with auburn tresses and wide blue eyes.

 

Clegane found her a se’nnight before, skulking within the frozen great hall, shivering and pinning and wielding a pair of fabric shears. Between the elder Starks - or at least the Stark and Snow - it had been decided that heating such a large chamber proved prohibitive considering the need to conserve fuel for possible siege, and therefore all meals and socialising now took place within a small refectory off the kitchen where once the servants ate their own repast. Only essential rooms were warmed, and only then if the occupant was particularly unable to deal with the difficult conditions.

 

Blue fingers trembled as she drew upon thick black cloth with a piece of chalk, Sansa unaware of Clegane’s presence until large hands draped a blanket about her slim shoulders. Startled, she stepped back and bumped into his chest, slipping away with a blush and the shyest of glances.

 

A quiet regard settled between them since Clegane came to Winterfell. Sansa still feared the man, and he knew that his outburst upon their first meeting caused her to be afraid of him even after a three weeks, one of with he spent unconscious. Unused and uncomfortable when faced with the uncouth manners and Scotch tempers of this outsider, she retreated within herself. She would smile, and say the right things of course. Apologise for matters not her fault. Appear chastened and appropriately humble.Clegane understood. Behind the wax-doll mask, the painted smiles and cast-down eyes, she scrabbled to survive. Defenses and masks. Did he not wear his own, hiding behind scars and misogyny? They were oddly alike in some ways, Clegane and beautiful Sansa Stark; he shielded himself with  preemptive anger and an uncaring belligerence, the girl wearing her perfect manners and obedience as armour.

 

But. Always but. However much the girl was frightened of him, however nervous, Clegane seemed to be the one that she would talk with. Still hurting and bitter at Snow and Tarly, Jojen proving overly peculiar, and her younger siblings too small to discuss matters with, she turned to the Covenanter. In the usual circumstances their association would be seen as scandalous; a young maid left alone with a man, even platonically, ruined her reputation and that of her family. Situations, however, changed. War forced strange acquaintances. A girl in her singular position needed counsel from one with experience, who did not judge, one who was not family. Needs must. Sometimes Clegane fancied that her glances lingered, her expression wondering and uneasy and fascinated, but considered that Sansa was of an age to wed and had never been at close quarters with a man grown and not of her blood. Any man between sixteen and forty, and that did not include Tarly obviously, would have caught her unwitting interest; it just so happened that the Covenanter represented the closest to a knight or gentleman available. How fucking amusing. Her revulsion at his scars noticeably lessened, but she did not ask about them, nor did he offer an explanation. They all needed secrets.

 

“You’re frozen, hen.” 

 

“I need a mourning gown. For-”

 

She swallowed, the mask flickered for the tiniest of moments, and Clegane wished he could trail his mouth along the pale column of her swan throat. Oh to taste her pulse, her life, flowing beneath the warmth of flesh. He hated this girl. Loathed her. He wanted to stroke her hair and kiss her palm and promise to save her from the world. Drag her to a chair and force all the pain away; kneel in thrall between her endless legs, slide those voluminous skirts to her curving hips and make her climax over and over until she forgot everything apart from his name and tongue. Exasperation ground heavily, confusingly. Never a man used to softer emotions, now Clegane experienced them, he flailed. Fucking, he understood. Sansa was beautiful, his cock agreed. Revulsion and suspicion towards the fairer sex were perfectly understandable given the man’s unique circumstances. The tenderness he felt, threatening and wrong and worm-like, discombobulated. Unused to affection, Clegane felt lost.

 

“You can’t be making it when you’re so cold.” 

 

“I must, se-Mr. Clegane. It is the proper thing to do.” Sansa ran her fingers over the heavy damask. “Mother did this, and so must I. This was her dress, I found it. It’s a little big, she was fully grown when Uncle Brandon died, so I am trying to alter it a little. I’ve never had to make a gown before, but I can sew quite neatly, and I think it just needs the seams taken in and a little taken from the cuffs.” Resignation painted her sweet voice a darkish sorrowful grey.

 

“Warm your hands. I’ll do the cutting. Why up here, why not the kitchen?” Quite the order, Clegane plucking the shears from those poor frozen fingers. At least the girl had the sense to wind her hands within the blanket, huddling.

 

“The light is too poor, and the fabric is very dark. I couldn’t see.”

 

“Bloody women, always making matters difficult for yourselves.” Sansa did not cringe away, not this time. Perhaps the words were meant tenderly, almost teasing, or she perhaps she was so overly thankful at someone helping her in a frankly thankless task that she forgot to be terrified. Her lack of anxiety seemed oddly pleasing. A warmth grew in his chest, even when he snipped the very end of his calloused fingers with the scissors and she wound a spare strip of black fabric about it as a rudimentary bandage, and the sensation remained for most of the evening.

 

* * *

 

One in the afternoon. The blizzard gave way to flurries and an eerie near-windless calm. It made the Covenanter restless; something would give, somewhere. The world felt incorrect and dense, as if pressure dug within his head, popping his ears and tender under his eye sockets.

 

Even now the niceties of the highborn still reigned, even as they ate. Jon offered a solemn and sincere prayer to the Old Gods, hands laced firmly and curling head bowed. He’d taken to biting his nails; the ruddy quicks overly sore as he squeezed his knuckles tighter. Darkly ironic that the bastard took his father’s seat at the long oak table. Head of the household now, due to seniority and not legitimacy, was Snow. Cat Stark would have hated this; the walking proof of her husband’s battlefield whoring, small and dark-eyed and half-zealous as he whispered. A baseborn regent of Winterfell. Her distaste of course, perfectly understandable given Ned had fucked another, but the bastards and the cripples and the broken banded together; Tyrion Lannister once told him that, mismatched eyes sliding over the Covenanter’s scars and fury and not even judging. He gave the half-man that. Cripples, bastards, all of that shit. All suffered. Clegane thought Snow nothing but a long streak of piss, but since Catelyn had despised her husband’s misbegotten son and the woman proved irksome in the most, he looked upon the youth with slightly less distain. Useless though he was, the young man sparred well enough, grasped tactics, and provided an able steward in Tarly. With sense beaten into the boy, he may have potential. The Covenanter was perfectly willing to provide a sound thrashing.

 

Apart from Rickon and himself the others murmured their reply to the ancient catechisms, but Sansa’s gentle rebuke concentrated upon her little brother. He promptly ignored her sweet request for table manners, sharing half of his meagre dinner with the great dire wolf curled under the table.

 

“Please, Rickon, could you not have Shaggy Dog at the table during meal times?” An argument older than the few weeks Clegane had been at Winterfell.

 

“He’s hungry.” A sliver of cheese disappeared into the slavering jaws of the unfortunately named beast. 

 

“We are all hungry, Rickon,” Bran added, elucidating a rare smile from his sister. “Shaggy Dog can hunt with the other wolves, but we cannot, so stop feeding him.”

 

“Why can’t we hunt? We always hunt. Father says I can have a bow when I am seven, and that is only a little while away. I will hunt then. I will feed us.” Rickon’s name day approached rapidly, Sansa despairing of how such an event could even be celebrated in such circumstances. Rickon knew of his parents’ death but seemed to cope by drawing closer to his beloved animals. Even Stranger tolerated the fierce boy, sensing a spirit akin to that of his master. Rickon, if he were darker haired and greyer eyed, could pass for a Clegane brat given his general attitude and angriness at the world.

 

“Because it is very dangerous, even with the wolves, dearest.” Sansa passed a hand across her forehead. “We must be very careful because of the fighting, we do not know if the enemy army will come to Winterfell so we are staying safe within the walls and being mindful of the food and wood we use.” 

 

“I will make you a bow, Rickon, and teach you how to use it before your name day. If the armies come, then we can man the walls together?” 

 

“Jon, he’s six!” 

 

“I read that the younger a person is when they are taught a skill, the better they grasp it. Sorry.” Sam flushed at his interruption, obviously not wishing Jon and Sansa’s bickering to erupt once more. He proved quite the peacemaker, kind and understanding and empathetic to a fault. “Perhaps if a target could be set up, we could all learn to shoot? I am awful at it, but I really would like to learn even if I am so very bad. We could all be useful then? Well, more useful, I am not saying people are not useful. Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. Everyone is. Useful, I mean. We all have skills, do we not? Mr. Clegane and his blacksmithing and swordfighting, and Miss Sansa, you play and sing so beautifully, mending all of our clothes and keeping the house running so. Keeping our spirits up! I’ve never known a boy so good with animals as Rickon, even Stranger likes him! Bran with his clever ideas about defending Winterfell, and Jojen who thinks of things in wonderfully different ways. Jon is so good at leading us all,” and Sam’s expression bordered upon the adoring. “I can make medicines and heal. Then there is everyone else, who helps us all so much with the everyday matters we could not even think of. So really, we are very self-sufficient! But if we could all just learn one more small thing, even the littlest amongst us, we would be even more prepared.”

 

“That was a very good speech, Sam. I agree with you whole-heartedly” The kindness, regard returned thricefold by Snow, and the fat maester flushed as red as Sansa’s glorious hair. 

 

“I am sorry Jon for being hasty in my speech.” Sansa slipped behind herself like a reflection within a looking glass, the appropriate expression contrite upon her face. Clegane felt his fists itch; fuck the bastard and his Crow whore for forcing the mask upon her. “You speak correctly, and I was wrong. I apol-”

 

Feet skittered across stone, Cassell barging into the refectory red-faced and chest heaving. Wordless, he beckoned at the Covenanter, and his gloved hands grasped the man’s wrist, dragging him from the chamber and up the cramped stone spiral staircase. Alert even with the swilling of small beer within his belly, Clegane followed as quickly as he was able; the narrowness of the steps meant pressing his shoulders and back against the wall and clambering sideways, crab-like, to the battlements. Footsteps echoed behind him, indicating another following.

 

Plunging into white-out brightness from the gloomy interior, he grit his teeth with dagger jarring pain, half-blind and senseless. A few moments, adjusting, fumbling for the great crenellations, before he saw.

 

Below them, in the valley, the vanguard of an battalion picked their way through the snow. Too distant to see the banners, yet; all that could be inferred from upon high were darkish shapes. A few horses silhouetted against the frozen background, some infantrymen with pike and halberd, then a mass heavy and ominous further back. Cassell caught his breath finally, roaring out orders to the ragtag assembly of grooms, housemen, and the few skeleton men-at-arms that Winterfell retained, and Clegane squinted.

 

An odd calm descended

 

He understood this. War never changed. He had lived this before, during the Baratheon rebellion. Like Gregor he had fought for the Lannisters, that family of cunning turncoats, wealthy and profligate with coin to their mercenaries, who decided the outcome of the war through the sword of Jaime Lannister. A mere child of twelve, Clegane killed his first man with a dagger through the eye socket, pissing himself in horror as the eyeball had oozed and dripped across his leather-clad hand. The soldier, some Targaryen employed sellsword from Savoy, replete with the usual handsome crossbow and arrogant sneer, had taken an overly-long time to die; Clegane finally finished him with a merciful hacking stab to the throat. A hundred more had fallen to his brutality since that day. War. Always the same, just differing circumstances. Even sieges. Cannon would take too long to drag across the difficult terrain, but small mortars may be brought in on horseback. Bully for them; the walls of Winterfell, hellish thick, designed to withstand anything but the largest of missiles, seemed impervious. The only forestry in the immediate area was the Godswood, the fuckers would destroy that soon as look at it for fuel. Poor Sansa’s heart would shatter, possibly the pious Snow’s. No cover though, allowing ease of sniping for the talented Gage who should be posted to the tower nearest the gatehouse, the one with the greatest angle of fire.

 

Snow appeared next to him, subdued but steadfast and hands not shaking. Surprisingly brave for a man of his tender years. Perhaps he was less incompetent than he first seemed. Maybe the beating needed to be postponed.

 

“Ready bastard?” He must have been preparing the others below stairs, the servants and the family. Cassell’s insistence, the unwritten understanding, Jon’s belated appearance upon the ramparts, a faint scuffle of industry. Adding up. Good lad. 

 

“I told the maids to move as many bedrolls and mattresses to the refectory as can be fit, everyone needs to remain together for safety. They will also run ammunition, Cassell has set up a central armoury at the smithy, and I have left Bran and Jojen taking stock of what weaponry and powder we have. Sansa and Sam are readying the medicines and poultices. Rickon has disappeared somewhere with the wolves. As long as they keep him safe I do not care.”

 

The regiment moved nearer. The three men watched.

 

Something was wrong.

 

Cassell spotted the incongruity first, more used to peering into the white nothing than Snow and Clegane. Hunching forward over stone and twisting his head, he rubbed at his eyes with blunt fingertips, checking once more.

 

“Those aren’t Lannister banners, Hound.” Gravel tones. Dismay. No one had sent word of reinforcing Winterfell. Any force that approached was a hostile one.

 

“The fuck?” Difficult to spot, but as the regiment came ever closer, more obvious; no red and gold. The great flags, lazy in the slow breeze, appeared black, with the occasional flash of white and red, but they were unable to ascertain the sigil. It changed everything. The confidence the Covenanter felt at facing the Lannister war machine faded into a troubled confusion, a worried fumbling of not knowing. Yes, Tywin Lannister was a consummate tactician, a talented general rich in age and experience. Clegane, having been brought up in the man’s army, was more at ease when faced with something he had experienced, something familiar. Tywin, as his wont, remained at Oxford with the King and sent his commanders by messenger; his most treasured son chosen to command the sieging forces. Damn it, he even knew Jaime Lannister to some extent; golden and beautiful and damned Jaime, the fucker of sisters and killer of Mad Kings. With the Covenanter now tough and experienced himself, a common ground of comradeship could have been reached between him and Lannister, even if he hated the cunt’s incestouous guts. A gentleman’s siege between two former allies, that was what Clegane had hoped. All ‘we don’t wish to destroy your castle, so please do not shoot us, and we’ll sit here for the next six months until we get bored and go home, or you get to the point where you have to eat your shoe leather to survive and therefore surrender peacefully. Let’s be civilised about this, eh?’

 

When prepared for one enemy, one that was known, and then another showed in their stead? The world shifted and the percentages changed.

 

“I still can’t make it out.” Cassell muttered. He sounded nervous. “The eyes aren’t as good as they were, lads.”

 

“Oh, wait. I think-” Jon frowned, unsure and thoroughly bewildered. “No. That cannot be.”

 

A gust of wind stirred the snowbanks and encouraged a pennon to unfurl with a snap. Upon the heavy canvas, lurid and sickening in turn, hung the Flayed Man of House Bolton.

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Historical Bit:**
> 
> _Winterfell: A.K.A. Caerphilly Castle:_
> 
> When I think of grim fortresses, I always think of one castle. 
> 
> Caerphilly Castle is the second largest concentric castle in Europe; only Windsor is larger. It was also not built by royalty, but by Gilbert 'The Red' de Clare, Earl of Gloucester and son-in-law to King Edward I, Hammer of the Scots (he's the angry King one in _Braveheart_ but we do not mention that film. Ever). The most powerful of the English Marcher lords, de Clare was determined to break the rule of the Lord of Senghenydd and smash Welsh opposition to English occupation. He therefore built the biggest castle he possibly could. Work was finished by 1272, after being dogged by the Welsh who did not take kindly to an enormous fortress being constructed five miles away from their main southern stronghold, and the King sticking his nose in. The castle was a marvel of technology, built over 35 acres. It provided a blueprint for Edward I to build the great castles of North Wales such as Harlech, Caernarvon, and Beaumaris.
> 
> By 1300 the wars with the Welsh were over. Llywellyn ap Gruffudd was dead, his daughter locked in an English nunnery somewhere in the fens (incidentally, intermarriage between high-ranking Welsh and English was often encouraged, especially with English women and Welsh men; it was considered by the English that their womenfolk would have a positive effect upon teaching any offspring, meaning sympathy for the English cause. Gwenllian, Llywellyn's daughter, had an English mother, a daughter of an important Marcher family. This also happened in Norman Anglo-Ireland). Caerphilly Castle, no longer needed, began a slow and inevitable decline. During the Glyndwr rebellion of the early 1400s it was utilised as a prison, and somewhat of a storage area. By the English Civil War the mighty fortress was ruinous; there is a folktale of the Roundheads undermining one of the great towers but it not falling, leaving the masonry perilously leaning. Indeed, the tower at Caerphilly leans more than the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and both were caused by subsidence. As usual the great stoneworks were plundered to build handsome houses such as the Van, and by the 20th century not much was left of the castle.
> 
> Then. From nowhere. Like a conquering hero of castle rebuilding, the fourth Marquis of Bute arrived. Continuing the work of his father, though with far more sympathy (see Cardiff Castle for the madness that happened when the third Marquis got his hands on things), he restored the castle, redug the moats, and turned it into the wonderful structure that can be seen to this day. Dammit, there are even working trebuchet that fling rocks into the moat now, and a festival called the Big Cheese, and Edward I re-enactments. 
> 
> This is my Winterfell. The largest and grimmest and most technologically advanced castle of it's age, huge and menacing and psychologically terrifying the people for miles around. Website link to have a look about and see how everything is in my head [here. I should have linked this in Welsh to confuse people.](http://cadw.gov.wales/daysout/caerphilly-castle/?lang=en)


	7. Arya I

* * *

 

 

Arya _ran_.

 

How easy it was for her to slip away from the confusion of the Baratheon camp. No one really noticed the drummer boys, the messengers, the children who lived far below adult eye-level, although Stannis Baratheon was not bad and Captain Seaworth reminded her of Ned in a kind fatherly way. Father was soft. No. Had been soft. Arya gagged back the bitter taste in her throat; she would not dwell on that.

 

Everyone else ignored the youngsters. Even at thirteen she was tiny and scrawny and seemed younger, all hacked-off mud-brown hair and scruffiness. To them she was just another boy soldier drawn into the army to taste the excitement of a war he did not really understand. Cannon fodder, or pike-flesh, or useful for running notes between high-ranking men. One or two of the men considered her with narrowed eyes, intrigued glances that lingered like steaming breath in the frozen early morning, which was disgusting because she had seen men look at Sansa in that way. Ugh! The thought of their stupid clammy hands and horrible lips trying to kiss her. Pretty girls like Sansa, or handsome princes like Oberyn Martell - they got stared at. Not stringy little bits of brown like her.

 

She liked Oberyn. He was interesting. The Dornish prince once fed Arya after seeing her attempt to steal an apple from his fruit bowl. He laughed, told her to just ask next time she wanted food, made her sit at the table in his elaborate tent and eat a proper meal heavy-swimming in rich sauce. Oberyn talked about horses and dogs in an exotic sort of accent, flashed very white teeth. Perhaps if she was of an age with Sansa, she could have found herself a little in love with the man’s exuberant charm and glowing dark eyes. Willas Tyrell, who was also nice but a little dull compared to Martell, like comparing a hen with a gorgeously-feathered cockerel, possessed a touch of Bran about him. Soppier though, as he tried to clean her face with a wet handkerchief and despaired of the ingrained dirt. They passed looks back and forth, talking without words, and it reminded Arya of her parents even if the thought now left her empty and numb.

 

Part of her just wanted to stay in the warm tent, live with the two men, let them be her new parents because hers were dead somewhere in Yorkshire. Dead, and they were never coming back. No ruffling of her hair, no dancing lessons with the man from Greece and Father pretending to despair but secretly glowing with pride at how good Arya was at swordplay. No more thyme-scented hugs from Mother, no more chiding of torn skirts and racing about with wolves and playmates. No more settling in the solar on a chilly day with warmed mead-infused tonics, Cat sewing and Ned reading aloud. No more being little Arya, with a Mum and a Dad to catch her when she fell.

 

She needed to go home.

 

And no. She did not want anyone looking at her, not in that way. Not Arry, not Arya, not a thirteen year old girl pretending to be a boy because she wanted to go to war like her brothers. Because she wasn’t beautiful and elegant like Sansa, and she should have been male, and she had Needle and could fight better than half of the bloody regiment!

 

One day she knew with a cold-clear certainty that she would kill the people responsible for Mother and Father’s deaths. She had a list, in her head. Every night, before she slept, she recited the names silently, almost a spell or curse or promise needing to be said. Always it starting with Joffrey Lannister, who she hated since he was so awful to Sansa, a hideous example of a human tainted and twisted by the infamy of his close-blood parents. How could anyone sleep with their sister? Once, because she wanted to try and understand why a brother and his sibling would fuck, Arya tried to imagine love-making; she had a vague awareness that it involved removing clothes and using the parts boys have within the parts girls have Kissing. Apparently there should be lots of kissing. She envisioned kissing Jon, squeaked, raced over to the freezing pond by the Weirwood, and threw herself into it to try and escape the horrid filthy feeling.

 

Knowing that Ned would send her straight back to Winterfell, when she knew she had to go and fight, Arya chose to travel south. Easy enough since the war had lulled, winter as every playing a part in tactics, and her parents, closeted in York, were not there spoil her plan. Unlike her siblings, apart from possibly Rickon but he was just a little boy and that was really boring, Arya knew the lay of the land about Winterfell. Nymeria knew. So very simple to chop off her stupid long hair, steal some old clothes of Jon’s (he was small in stature, and Arya loved him so very much, more than her full siblings because he _understood_ ), take Needle and Nymeria and a small pack of sentimental items, and steal away into the dark moonless night. Her dire wolf guided and warmed, hunted small game which the girl gutted with a wickedly sharp kitchen knife that had been carefully hoarded, badly roasted the bloody carcasses over the smallest of camp fires. She drank from ice-cold snow-fed streams, making her way carefully over the moor and down into Catterick.

 

From there, even simpler. She mingled with the other boys of her age, said she wanted to go south. An older boy called Gendry who was a blacksmith and on his way to be in the Stark camp and who had really very blue eyes pointed out the knot of soldiers travelling down the country to Colonel Baratheon. A cheeky remark, a clip around the ear, and two weeks later she turned up at Stannis’ headquarters, dirty and tired and as foul-mouthed a boy as ever there was.

 

Nymeria followed at distance, Arya often riding within her wolf’s mind. She sometimes awoke with a taste of raw meat about her teeth and an urge to prowl, exhausted at running through the night in the body of another and not truly resting her mind. Warging, though! Her and Jon did it, she had an inkling that Robb also indulged, and Rickon definitely would; out of all of the siblings he was the nearest to the wolves, most like the proud beasts. The first time she had slipped within Nymeria, the first time where scents seemed to glow like phosphorescence and sounds usually dull were crystal and sharp, the first time she ran with the wind across the moorland and howled at a moon waxing with pregnant promise; the first time she felt truly alive.

 

She asked Jon the next day, since he noticed her strange energy and black smears under her usually bright eyes. Restlessness twitched, as if her flesh seemed wrong and constricting. Not enough legs. Colours over-saturated.

 

“I dreamt last night,” she said, trying to gauge his reaction. Of all of them Jon was least likely to laugh at her. “I dreamt I was Nymeria. No, not actually her, more in her mind as she ran, but also feeling as if I was part of her.”

 

He took her grubby hand in his own pale one, thumb rubbing across rough knuckles. Mother always despaired; how Arya hated pretty clothes, how she wanted to rough and tumble with the boys. How she was nothing like perfect, serene Sansa with her pretty hair and idiotic fairytale hopes.

 

“Did you wake up feeling like you’d eaten a piece of rare steak? I always get that.”

 

Jon, who understood her, who considered things carefully, who always thought about everything, who was sensible and overly-inward half the time, who hid behind a tumble of dark curls and reserve. Jon, who she loved more than stupid Sansa, or Bran, or even her darling Robb. She grinned at him, heart thrashing and half-disbelieving; it happened to him too?

 

“It’s brilliant! I didn’t want to wake up.”

 

“Maybe Ghost will see Nymeria, show her the best places to hunt.”

 

Arya hugged him very tightly indeed, and he squeezed her back.

 

* * *

 

Three days later, somewhere between villages that she did not know the name for, they caught her.

 

Slogging through mud was not an easy thing, even if Arya could just about leap over the worst of it. If she weighed any more than a bag of flour, she would have sunk into the churned-up mess thick with horseshit and possibly been stuck there forever; well, at least until some strong person dragged her from the dripping mess. Nymeria led the way, and she followed discreetly. Many knew the Stark children had dire wolves. Seeing one so southerly and in the company of an appropriately aged child may spoil everything if they knew Arya was considered missing. She had no idea if her family advertised her absence. Part of her wondered if she should just tell someone that she, Arya Stark, second daughter of Winterfell, wanted to go home. But then? How could she trust anyone? A word in the wrong ear and she could be deep in the Lannister’s clutches. If she was even believed, of course! She could even be locked up as a madwoman considering girls were not supposed to wear men’s clothing, since it was _wrong_ according to stupid men who never had to wear stupid skirts! Hadn’t that Moll Cutpurse, that Mary Frith, been arrested for cross dressing and walked her penance through the streets of London? She had been imprisoned and everything!

 

No, best that she strike out alone, go north with Nymeria, and get to Robb.

 

Best she try and not think about her parents.

 

Best concentrate on plotting every tiny little single detail of how she would kill King Joffrey. Perhaps slitting tiny wounds all over, letting the blood trickle out drop by drop. Or Needle to the intestines, so very deep and slender to cause a mortal wound that would fester and rot and he’d dye shitting and screaming in agony. Or-

 

Deep in a reverie, dreaming of dancing swords and poisoned blades, she did not notice the red-robed man watching her. Just as she edged about a too-deep puddle, almost toppling but Arya had excellent balance, an arm - and it was a big arm, solid and resolute and surprisingly cold - caught about her shoulders and dragged her back from the rutted track of a road. The act happened so swift she could not even scream before they plunged through bracken and gorse-hedge and into a smallish clearing. Fear burst, then narrowed, pin-pricking and raking at her eyelids. Not tears, more a sizzling anger, a choking terror that doused her in boiling oil and panic. Even biting didn’t help, Arya trying to savage that chill-infested forearm, screeching, twisting, giving everything she could as her scrabbling hands could not find Needle. 

 

“Stop it this instant,” the person who held her grumbled, half-amused, “or I’ll break your skinny little neck.” To Arya’s frustration, he seemed unmoved at the whirlwind wriggling in his arms, snapping at anything she could in a most Rickon wolfish way. She weighed up the chances before she obligingly became limp. Best not to anger him too much; the scars across the white flesh indicated a man used to fighting and fighting hard. It would be best to just do what this person wanted and then find a way to slip away later. Breathing helped; a tiny breath in, a long exhale. Repeat. The flinty-sharp feeling of needing to run quelled, just a little. Be sensible. Think. What would Syrio do?

 

Surprise. Be small, and non-threatening, and then dance as the Master taught.

 

“Good lad.” The Scarred Man patted her head. She found herself tucked under one large arm, lolling about. If this man wanted to carry her, let him drag about her dead weight! Not that she weighed anything, but a token resistance needed to be shown. Scowling, she considered lead weights, heavy washing baskets, kegs of ale.

 

“The child has a sword, Beric.”

 

“Don’t they all these days?” He hefted Arya with ease, settling her into a drunken position where her head, arms and legs dangled towards the earth.

 

Whoever this Beric was talking with, and that name seemed to be one she remembered, from somewhere, a long time ago when everything was not war, they were dressed in dirty red robes. A maester? Or a Septon? Didn’t they all wear black. The other’s voice had an eastern cant, continental, not French or Germanic or Greek, but something further than that; a trickle of a lilt encased in fur. She squirmed, interested now she was not in obvious and immediate danger, wanting to see.

 

“Stop that, I told you before.” The arm squeezed. Arya felt her ribcage creak.

 

“If I stop, and promise not to bugger off, you put me down?”

 

“Oh, put the boy down Beric. Between you and me we can contain one small sprat.”

 

Arya, surprisingly, was placed gently upon her feet. The man in red smiled at her, even with his eyes. His robes, spattered in mud, seemed faded, a breastplate clamped over his chest, the sword at his hip seemingly charred about the cutting edge. Compared to the man who held her - this Beric with his eye-patch, a mess of red-gold hair falling across the ravaged side of his face, and really very scarred indeed - the Red Man seemed the more approachable.

 

“You should not be on your own, child, not in the middle of a war.”

 

“I’m goin’ north. Or was. Until he,” Arya jerked a thumb over her shoulder in the vague direction of the Scarred Man, “grabbed me.”

 

“Such a co-incidence, we are going north also.” Another smile. He had the sort of skin that belonged to a much fatter man, his eyes the colour of the red wine Mother sipped sometimes after dinner. Port, or whatever it was. Darker than blood, not as brown as brandy. Arya stole some of the decanted liquid once, drank one or two mouthfuls and then awoke with a muzzy head the next morning. “You shall come with us, it has been decided.”

 

“By who?” Suspicious. Men preying on children at the side of roads were not to be trusted. She wouldn’t kiss them, or whatever they wanted. Sex. She wouldn’t let them have Sex. She still had Needle snug against her side. She knew which bits of men were particularly vulnerable.

 

“By the Brotherhood. By Rh’llor,” said the Red Man.   
  


* * *

 

The Red Man fought with fire, and Arya? Arya thought it fucking wonderful.

 

He poured some sort of oil onto the blade of his sword, something he called _naft._ The concoction, sticky and rainbow-hued as the light shone upon the metal it coated, stank of pine and brimstone; when the weapon thrust deep into the coals of the dying fire nothing happened for a moment, before, with a whoomph and a blast of heat, the fumes and liquid caught. The Red Man watched, beatific.

 

Rh’llor was a God, the Red Man His priest. Fire, he told Arya in a tone that was all at once loving and lecturing, cleansed and worshipped. Flame brought visions from the Lord of Light, promising the destruction of ice and death. He was the dawn, the chants and songs of his worshippers praised Him for His mercy. His chosen one, the prince that was promised, tempered his sword in the deathblood of his beloved wife’s heart. One day, that prince would return. Azor Ahai would rise once more from flame and sacrifice, a gift from Him. Fire. Justice. Death to winter. The long dark night, full of terror, would once more be vanquished.

 

All shit, like everything else. Blood was not cold enough to quench weapons, should use oil or water. Men of science explained the rising of the sun fifteen hundred years before! No, this was stupid, like all the religions apart from the Old Gods. She lived her religion in action rather than prayer; no weirwood worship for Arya and she bowed her head to no God, no obsequious kneeling for her. It was within Nymeria she gave thanks; when the moon rose and the night deepened, shadows ash and nothing and everything, and her vows poured from the howling throat of a wolf.

 

All shit. All of it. Until she heard the tales of Beric being dead and the Last Kiss awaking him once more.

 

Something of the corpse still clung to the Scarred Man. Each death, and the toll was paid, Beric losing himself even more. Thankfully for Arya. She placed him finally, jerking awake and sweating with horror, remembering him as the brave man who swore to her father he would hunt and kill Gregor Clegane. He did not seem to know her; memories, apparently, only existed from after Ned Stark sent him from Winterfell to gut the Scotch cunt. Beric’s promise still lingered, became the man’s driving obsession, because that was what he remembered. Protecting the smallfolk from monsters in the name of King Robert Baratheon; the reason for the Brotherhood.

 

He idly told her how he died as if the fact did not bother him, counting them off on his fingers like a child. A pike through his belly and bursting out near his spine, the weapon wielded by the Mountain. Hanged by Lannisters. Dagger through the eye-socket courtesy of the Scottish fucker once more. Another hanging. A death he could not quite remember, but the long angry raised scarring over his throat suggested having been stuck like a pig, bleeding out. Arya told him that only cats had nine lives, was he sure that he was not one of those? and Beric grinned. Once he had been good-looking, handsome even, but with each death and revival he paid a price to the Lord of Light. The wounds healed but never faded. A patchwork quilt, was the Scarred Man, but then, even if lesser and corrupted through multiple slayings, something of the virile man of the past flickered in his remaining hazel eye.

 

Arya grinned back.

 

He also set his sword afire. With his blood. No ceremony; he slid the metal through whatever bit of him seemed the most easily accessible at the time, and then plunged the weapon into the nearest camp hearth. No hesitation, not like the _naft_. Immediate flame, dancing along the sword’s battered edge.

 

And that was even more fucking brilliant.

 

* * *

 

The Brotherhood ended up being not bad - not as bad as it could have been, as she feared. No kissing, no hands trying to find parts of her that shouldn’t be touched. Not that the Red Man told her much about the rag-tag jumble of men, leaving her in the ‘care’ of a shy-faced young man replete with dark eyebrows and an earnest expression. Apparently this Pod, which was a stupid name, to match his stupid face, was Beric’s squire. He called everyone sir, including Arya, and blushed too much, couldn’t fight for toffee, but seemed quite organised. A talented cook. He even made bread on the open fire. Bread! It seemed some sort of witchcraft that Arya watched with gimlet-eyed fascination. When he kneaded dough on a flattish stone, lost in the shift of arms and working of shoulders, he looked almost peaceful.

 

“Whatsh the Brotherhood,” she finally asked around a mouthful of rabbit the first full evening she travelled with them. “Whatshit do?”

 

“We give money and goods to the poor, we take it from people who have too much. From Tyrells, Starks, Lannisters, the usual.”

 

“Like Robin Hood?” Swallowing, tearing another bite from the leg with her teeth, squashing down the flitter of her gut when he said her surname. It could be worse. Hot food, such a luxury, seemed plentiful. Good hunters, these Brothers. Various dead game birds, coneys, even a small deer one day, came unto Pod. Pod made them into food. Arya devoured it and told Pod he was stupid. It was how things happened. As the two youngest in the Brotherhood, they naturally gravitated together; Pod with his stupid gentle face and good nature, Arya with her filthy mouth and ill-contained fury masking heart-sickness.

 

“Yes, like Robin Hood.”

 

“Least the Brotherhood’s fucking real.”

 

Pod nodded, the corner of his mouth curving, never quite looking at her. He never quite looked at anyone; if accidentally meeting someone’s eye, Pod turned the colour of the Red Man’s robes, shuffling his feet and glowing about the back of his neck.

 

“So why did Beric steal those two chickens and give the farmer an I Owe You?”

 

He scratched his nose. Stupid nose, as well. He was just ridiculous all over, like all boys were. Without her true blood surrounding her, lost and numb and swinging between murderous venom and broken child-like distress, Arya needed something to focus upon. Pod, who was apparently Podrick and that was only slightly better than being named after something peas came from, was someone to stick to. He was brother-aged, he was kind. He took everything she threw at him; she annoyed and teased, a snarling wolf-cub so very brittle under the veneer she hid beneath.

 

Eventually she broke once more, overly-tired and drained after a long day’s march. To her immense and stubborn pride she had cried only twice and once was when she heard Stannis Baratheon announce her father’s death; she muffled the whimpering her hands and sleeves, tears furious and bitter and hurting. Cold and alone in the world, Arya teetered, scolded, drew herself together, and _ran_. As if the running away would make it hurt less!

 

The second time Arya cried, the fourth night with the Brotherhood when she understood, suddenly, that she may be going home; more so as the ghastly realisation/relief of the thought of getting to York, seeing Robb, explaining where she had been, then witnessing her family’s grief, slammed into her. That second time, when she desperately tried to suppress the shivers wracking her body and bit her wrist as she sobbed in a twisted horror and hope.

 

A shuffle within the blanket of the person slumbering next to her. An arm, weighty and slack with sleep but warm and considerate, fumbled clumsily about her back, drawing her close. Dark eyebrows knit in silent concern.

 

A hug from Pod. He smelled of melted animal fat, earth, yeast. Beer. He smiled his slow, kindly smile before wrapping them both in a tangle underneath their blankets. Pod was comfortable. It was like being cuddled by Jon, or Robb; someone who could look after her, keep her safe when she let him do so. Arya murmured something she could not quite remember, melting, and she slid into unconsciousness as her friend - and he was her friend, even if she was a right bitch to him most of the time and he really was stupid in that brother way - snored softly in her ear.

 

She awoke, and he was gone.

 

He came back though. He pressed something into her morning-chilled fingers, closing her hands around yeast-smelling heat.

 

Pod had made her a piece of bread, all for herself.

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Historical Bit**
> 
>  
> 
> _Today's Edition: Mary Frith and Greek Fire:_
> 
>  
> 
> Mary Frith, or Moll Cutpurse, was a notorious transvestite who terrorised late 16th/early 17th century London. Her nickname demonstrates her trade; pickpocketing and the fencing of stolen goods. When young, her uncle tried to send her to the New World in an attempt to tame her, but she jumped overboard, refused to go near the good Reverend again, and took to wearing breeches. This, obviously was rather risque. She walked penance for her cross-dressing crimes several times, carrying a candle and dressed in white, whilst very drunk indeede. We don't know if septas followed her and chanted 'shame,' though. It did not put Moll off, though, and she wore men's clothes until her death day. She requested she be buried 'arse-up' in her coffin. She was that sort of girl. Apparently she shot General Thomas Fairfax, one of the Parliamentarian Civil War generals in the arm, but got off by paying a £2000 bribe she earned from setting up respectable middle-aged women with handsome lovers.
> 
> (I love Mary Frith)
> 
> Greek fire, naptha, _naft_ \- many names for a number of flammable liquids used in warfare. Sources are unsure of what it consisted of, but seemingly it had a petroleum, sulphur, or bitumen base. In the _Alexiad_ , Anna Komnena, daughter of the Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos and writer of his biography, states that pine resin was also used. The chemical composition meant that it could be burned underwater and could not be extinguished with regular means; sand, urine or vinegar were often said to combat naft.
> 
>  _Naft_ comes from the Middle Persian and means wet. It seems to form the etymological base for the Greek word naptha. Since Rh'llor is based upon Zoroastrianism (the religion of the 'fire-worshippers,' possessing houses of fire and believing in the purity, righteousness and truth of the flames), the pre-Islamic religion of Persia, the word fits well.


	8. Ramsay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This being Ramsey, who we all know is his own warning. Luckily he only gets one chapter as I feel a bit grubby. I promise you Jaime next, so we can all just feel better about everything. 
> 
> Sometimes I hate plot progression.

* * *

 

 

“Sir!” The young soldier, little more than a boy and wild-eyed in the way of the inexperienced and terrified, plucked helplessly at the arm of the man in black. “Sir, please. He’s bleeding and-”

 

“Bleeding?” He murmured the question as if fine wine graced his mouth. 

 

“Shot, sir, in the leg, the bone! You can see the-. My Lord says he needs you to,” and that pause, frantic and horror-shrill, “amputate.”

 

Ramsay felt the familiar burn in his stomach, that sick thrill of blood and splinters and pain. He sniffed, then nodded, dark hair and pale eyes and a wide, so very wide grin. 

 

“I will be there shortly. Tell my Lord Father that unfortunately the brandy supplies are low and the operation will have to take place without dulling the poor wretch’s senses. Very sad, but entirely necessary.”

 

As the boy scurried from the tent, the Bolton Bastard palmed himself through his breeches. Plenty of wine. Plenty of brandy. No fun. He needed to see the agony as saw ripped through limb, not some dull-sensed body that provided no entertainment.

 

* * *

 

His new pet whimpered. Filthy little traitorous Greyjoy.

 

“Perhaps,” Ramsay murmured as he shaved in the small looking-glass, a man caught between puritanism, his father’s own ambitions, and too at ease with the long-bladed razor. “Perhaps we should crucify you? I am sure that will make Winterfell surrender. My Lord Father seems a little unsure. Traitors though, Greyjoy. Do traitors not deserve to be punished?”

 

Theon snapped, before the young man realised that his frankly overly-sensual mouth should remain firmly shut, that if anyone was a traitor it was that cunt Roose Bolton. Consequently he lost his front tooth to a heavy kick to the face. Ramsay wore it upon a chain around his throat; a little keepsake that every so often he found between his lips, sucking upon whilst in thought like a girl would nibble at a pendant. Greyjoy seemed to have no filter; all the arrogance and swagger of a Manxman, all the fire and spit of his Norse ancestry. A worthy adversary for once, a thrilling prospect. How lovely it was to see the hope dying in his once blazing eyes.

 

“It amuses me, you know, that there is a town upon your salted isle called Ramsey. An omen for you.” He chuckled, caught the skin just below his lip, thoughtlessly wiped the cut with a finger and sucked the redness from the tip with a faint hum. “How very important Ramsay turned out to be in your life, betrayer, how amusing don’t you think?” He paused, watching the shivering man in the mirror. Waiting.

 

“How amusing,” he repeated, a tone fractionally more dangerous, softer, steel and silk. Not a question, a demand. Theon whined once more and closed his eyes.

 

“Yes, Ramsay. Amusing.” 

 

“Good boy.” He finished his toilette, examining his face within the glass with the usual raking eye. An admirer of beauty in others because he wished to possess and destroy and rip and tear until they were as ugly and tainted as himself, he was comfortably aware of his apparent lack of charm. No one looked upon the face of this Snow and lusted; his body perfectly acceptable, yes, but his oddness of spirit turned his pale, ice-pupilled face into something less than ideal. Interesting though. He caught others regarding him with a sick sort of fascination, the ones that possible shared his lusts and wants, and those ones he did not touch. Why take the willing when the unwilling tasted so very sweet?

 

“My Lord Father says the eldest girl is pretty. Maybe I will keep you both as pets. Very innocent, he claims. Like a sister to you, I expect, having lived at Winterfell for so long.” Ramsay adored these one-sided conversations, scourging the trembling young man with a barbed tongue. 

 

Oh, Theon’s expression. The impotence, the anger, the realisation that he could do nothing if Ramsay decided upon taking the Stark girl for his own. Delicious. “The Manx practice of salt wives has always fascinated me, Kraken. Raiding, forcing themselves upon captive females, siring child after child in their unwanting bodies. Not that you would have bothered much with the women,” and he smirked, feeling particularly cruel in the moment, wanting more from his shivering captive. “Perhaps if you are a very good boy, I will bring you your Stark boy and let you watch as I punish him for his perversions of which, I am sure, are many considering that he had  _ you _ . Would you wish that, Theon? Hmm?”

 

Greyjoy twitched, breath shuddering and every sinew hating. More of a reaction to mentioning the young Lord of Winterfell; best concentrate on Robb than Sansa, a much more fascinating response. Every rumour about the friendship between young Stark and Theon Greyjoy, clarified within a moment. Images roiled. Red and dark, handsome boys frigging and giggling, then Ramsay slowly tearing them limb from limb. Feasting on suffering.

 

“Answer me, sweetheart.”

 

Robb called Theon sweetheart. Ramsay loved perverting the word, twisting the pet name within the Manxman’s fracturing mind and seeing how each little tug dragged Greyjoy closer to being as broken as his master desired. He found that little nugget with murmured sweet nothings to Theon’s ear as he trailed half-molten steel across the man’s curiously hairless chest, a whisper above the battered flesh, following the dangerous heat with the lightest scrape of nails, tempering the horror with the merest brush of lips over heavy bruising as Ramsay purred and suggested and made love with sickening intent. The unspoken promise of pain, and cradling Theon against his chest as if they were lovers? Oh, so very useful. Caught between memory, unbidden desire, and terror, seemed to be the once proud Kraken’s natural state of being. He grew talkative and garbled, nostrils flared and eyes huge pits of madness. Every pet needed to be broken. Every pet proved different. Some proved more susceptible to emotional torment, others needed to be destroyed physically. But Theon, who wore sensuality and lust as a peacock’s jacket, and needed to be punished just like Robb - even more so, since he obviously corrupted the Stark boy, like some debauched whore - responded so very sweetly to touch. Even more so to the tiny slivers of kindness shown after the beatings.

 

How would it be to break a person so totally that he turned  and loved him for it? A whipping boy who craved the lash, so to speak. 

 

“Yes, Ramsay. I would wish for that, Ramsay.” Crying. Nothing more lovely than someone crying and being unable to do anything to stop.

 

Ramsay petted Theon’s cheekbone carelessly. Delightful.

 

* * *

 

“My Lord Father.”

 

Roose paused from perusal of correspondence, glancing up, stern and black-clad and as overly-intelligent as any man. The puritanical scion of the Dreadfort; a man forged by religion, obsessed with death and the damnation of mankind, convinced of the rightful ascension of his house, who knew without any doubt that he, the Leech Lord, had been placed upon the earth as a righteous fury of the Old Gods. Lesser beings, those who did not revere - the heretics, the false worshippers, the Godless - they would know the wrath of House Bolton. They came to Winterfell as Ramsay’s father wished it, grasping the opportunity created by the murder of Ned Stark. By rights, by divine rights the Gods whispered and flattered, the lordship of the north and the loyalty of the subjects was his; the Starks, proud and noble and ancient, were nothing but usurpers. 

 

“The sniper continues to be an issue.”

 

“Yes, my Lord Father.”

 

Whoever the person within the gatehouse tower was, they proved overly effective. Four men struck down, three dead despite Ramsay’s surgery, or more probably because of, and the other bubbling his last as the musket ball took a lung. 

 

“When we take Winterfall, I leave his punishment to you.”

 

“Thank you, my lord. Perhaps undermining that tower would help?” Collapsing. Crushing. Taking a whole damned, and Ramsay did not swear before his father - Roose a pious man after all, chunk out of the admittedly impressive defences. It may kill the sniper, which would be tragic. Ramsay wanted to remove the man’s hands while the annoyance still lived, but, thinking upon it, mutilation of corpses was not alien to him. Perhaps he’d let Theon have the fingers since Greyjoy’s ended up shattered.

 

Roose tilted his head slightly, eyes narrowing and bleak. He sired his bastard, now his heir after the passing of Domeric, upon a grief-destroyed widow. Happily married to her sweetheart the previous day, and half an hour after hanging the woman’s husband for the sin of not requesting permission to wed, Roose took what was his right as liege lord. Bolton brutality. Domeric had not possessed such, and that was the reason that the harp-playing simpleton lay mouldering in a grave below the Dreadfort. Ramsay idly wondered sometimes if he had truly been the one to murder his full-blooded Bolton brother, or if Roose, sensing the potential within his bastard, committed the deed himself.

 

“While I applaud you finally thinking of something apart from the Greyjoy deviant and surgery, your plan is far too belated. Have you not noticed the sappers?”

 

Ramsay bit down, tasting blood. 

 

“My apologies, my Lord Father.”

 

"Really, boy - I name you my heir, and yet I despair of your intent. While I am perfectly willing to allow you your enjoyment, remember to try and use your talents as a weapon rather than a bludgeon. By letting you to keep the Ironborn boy I expected you to behave to a certain extent, and I shall not hesitate to remove him from your care if you continue upon your path with impunity. You are clever in your way, and yet all I hear from others are tales of your brutality! Hone yourself, boy. Choose the sinners and those who do not follow the path of righteousness; remember that one day you shall rule these lands. Currently your tastes are stirring those who should be allies to anger. Do I torture whoever I so wish? No, Ramsay, I choose those who would not be missed, or deserve everything that I put to them.”

 

“I will learn from your example, father.” More biting. More blood. He hated being scolded by his father. He loved the man in his own dark way, craved attention and respect.

 

“And,” the man glancing over the top of the spectacles he wore when writing, “try to keep Greyjoy mostly alive, will you?”

 

* * *

 

The siege entered a second week. The sappers undermined, the infernal snow grew heavier, almost bewitched, and wrong. The more superstitious spoke of the Great Winter centuries before, where dead walked and the Night’s King rode amongst the corpses upon a great skeletal horse rimed in frost. There had not been a winter like this for many a long year. Cold and that sniper killed two more men, wounded two more.

 

Ramsay mostly behaved. Theon was quite easy to grow fond of; attractive when hurting, he made the most pretty noises and seemed pathetically grateful when given scraps and water and little drips of affection. Sometimes the rations were withheld, just to hear him beg, just to see that desperation. He did everything, even weep, beautifully. The Ironborn boy became his only outlet; mindful of his Lord Father’s threat of removing the young man from his care if Ramsay’s behaviour did not improve, the bastard operated using the necessary precautions, upon insensate men, and unwillingly disposed of the body parts correctly.

 

“Look at what you made me do,” he sighed, smoothing Theon’s filthy hair tenderly. Under his touch the other cowered, blood cascading across his mouth and trickling from his chin. “That used to be a very fine nose, but then you didn’t listen properly, did you? You must do as you’re told.” He examined the displaced bone and cartilage with fascination, smearing Theon’s blood with dripping fingertips as he turned that broken face to the light. Bruising threatened; black eyes, like the smeared kohl about the lashes of whores. When thinking of Theon in general, with his coquettish flirtation and perversion, that salaciousness that demanded punishment, the comparison fitted neatly.

 

Sometimes the Greyjoy almost caught him, sometimes Ramsay almost fell for the doxy’s wiles. Sometimes he looked at his pet and wondered if he should just fuck him, bite him, tear his throat with sharp teeth as they both helplessly climaxed covered with their own blood. Take that heavy curved knife deep within his medical case in the sweet aftermath and saw it across the man’s prick and bollocks so Theon never experienced pleasure with another person again; so Theon, with his broken mouth and pale scarred body, was forever bound to him. Such was the nature of the damned, he supposed, those men and women driven by the need to mate. Tempting incubi, plotting to debase the righteous. When those unbidden desires rose, sometimes not entirely unwanted, Theon suffered for his seductive wickedness.

 

Ramsay tilted his head, the image of his father, before twisting his hand and resetting the shattered appendage.

 

The screaming helped a little, at least, to soothe. Restlessness never suited this Snow. He became as a caged beast, snarling against bars and biting whatever his teeth could reach. With Roose’s collar about his throat, dragging him from his naturally comfortable environment of pain and torment, all Ramsay controlled, felt right with, was this man bleeding and sobbing over his long leather boots. Laying back upon his bunk with a satisfied hum, he watched as Theon retreated to his tangle of filthy blankets upon the floor like the good creature he slowly became. At least he had this; something to do, this little project upon whom he doted. After all, as his Lord Father said; just don’t kill the Kraken.

 

That did not mean that Ramsay could not enjoy himself, did it? That did not mean that the squirreling heat of sadism could be quenched.

 

“All better.” There was blood cooling upon his hands, dark and glossy. Ramsay watched the stickiness thicken before he cleaned the skin with his mouth, eyelids fluttering at copper and salt. Theon tasted like the sea. Kelpy. “What do you say, sweetheart?”

 

The pause grew pregnant. Theon, when he finally creaked a reply, sounded paper-thin and sick with pain.

 

“I-I‘m sorry, Ramsay. Thank you, Ramsay.”

 

“Clean my boots.”

 

Rustling, and he did not bother to look to as Theon, broken and perfect, began to lap his own blood from the tightly fitted hide.

 

* * *

 

“Perhaps we should parade your friend before the walls.” He and Roose stood a little way from the partially destroyed tower; the vastness of Winterfell’s defenses refused to truly crumble to their frustration, the sappers failing in their task. His father took to pacing, hands laced in the small of his back. Too long. Winterfell, without the Stark adults, should fall! How indecent that the fortress refused to do so; each passing day led Roose towards losing his temper. Best for the children and servants they give themselves willingly to the Leech Lord. Whilst not driven by the same desire for pain as his son, the master of the Dreadfort burned fierce when he finally snapped. In technique his flaying outrivalled Ramsay’s. Roose could take a person and force them to live in agony for months, precise in his torment and calculated in his method. The son, hotter-headed and often overly-enthusiastic, tended to break his toys rather too quickly. 

 

Ramsay pondered, dark hair whipping in the icy wind racing down the long valley. One of the Bolton men had not returned one day; they found him half-eaten in a snowbank near to the untouched and pristine weirwood. Others showed signs of frost-nip. Too many more weeks standing before Winterfell and their strong army would turn to ice.

 

“I could flay him a bit?” His fingers found the chain about his throat, Ramsay mouthing the enamel keepsake he took from Theon as he wondered what would be most suitable. 

 

More pacing. 

 

“Whip him with the barbed cat? If I do it gently, he may not die?”

 

“Why is this place not falling?” Roose turned sharply upon his heel. “What is keeping them from opening the gates?” He breathed in, nostrils flaring, glaring at the portcullis several hundred feet before them. “All that remains are a few servants and some Stark blood brats. Why are they not surrendering, boy?”

 

Movement upon the battlements. Ramsay brought the refractive lensed tube to his eye, twisting the brass and focussing upon the walls. Every day for the past however long they had frozen half to death he used the telescope, trying to find some clue to why the castle refused to capitulate as his father grew ever more irate. At first the usual, really, endlessly brought. One or two male servants shouldering crossbows. A patrol once an hour from dawn until dusk. The occasional flare of a musket shot if a Bolton man strayed too near.

 

But then. Oh, that was new.

 

A maid darted, carrying powder flasks, bobbing a neat curtsey to a smallish pretty youth with girlish curls and draped in a great black-furred cloak. He said something Ramsay could not decipher from such a distance, the girl smiled and entered one of the tower doors. Accompanied by an unpleasantly fat maester, the effeminate boy -  and he saw now the insignia of the Night’s Watch embroidered upon fabric - moved along the ramparts to be met by a beautiful red-haired girl and one of the tallest men he ever saw. At first he concentrated on the lady, black-clad, locks styled elaborate and shining. Slender waist, the sort of fine-boned loveliness that centuries of excellent breeding encouraged. Young, but Ramsay had taken younger.

 

As his father’s heir, he deserved a high-born wife. Her. She would do. Obviously Sansa Stark. No other female within the walls could have such elegance. Delicate and breakable, fine like spun sugar and window glass.

 

Then, with chagrin growing, he noticed her delicate arm wrapped about the hulking one of the huge man, her hand covered with his. She looked up into his face as he turned, and he saw exactly who protected the Godsforsaken fortress. No other man wore scars so brazenly. No other man dressed in the black of a Covenanter and angrily eschewed religion as if he were the Stranger himself.

 

“Oh  _ fuck _ .” 

 

Roose paused. Ramsay never swore in the presence of his father. He held his hand out for the telescope and the bastard gave it willingly.

 

“For once,” the lord of the Dreadfort intoned, peering through the glass eyepiece, “I am in agreement with your vulgarity.” 

 

“What is to be done, my Lord Father?” Anyone but that Scottish cunt. Even Gregor. The Lannister dog may possess devilry but the younger brother, the scarred runt of the Clegane litter, had the temerity to be intelligent. Add to that his natural ability to intimidate others to do his bidding, a blood-minded hatred of the world, and a taste for never doing the expected; Sandor Clegane, well known to the northern lords, could prove...difficult. Impossible. The Covenanter, the sort of man who would die than betray a loyalty - and he must have been sent from Colonel Baratheon, the only man known to tame the Hound, and therefore allied to the Starks - the type of man who would rather destroy the fortress and kill the occupants himself than open the gates. Even Ramsay, who his father referred to as idiotically fearless, took pause. In close quarters, in the unseemly, unknightly brawl that would occur, he was confident of slaughtering the man. Ramsay refused to fight honourably. No fun. Why lose? But a Clegane, safe within thick walls? With time to think? 

 

“It is most unfortunate that we find ourselves against him. Most unfortunate indeed.”

 

Roose smiled. The expression never reached his eyes.

 

“Go and get the Greyjoy boy. Oh, and that gelding knife that I know you keep with your medical accoutrements and you seem to think I have no idea of. Let us see if the pleading of the Stark children will soften the resolve of that heretical Covenanter.”

 

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Historical Bit-**
> 
>  
> 
> _Today's part: Refracting Telescopes:_
> 
>  
> 
> Yes, Ramsey is in possession of a telescope. 
> 
> The first telescope of this kind was invented in 1608 in Holland. At the time the Dutch were probably the best makers of glassware north of the Alps, having discovered a way to make perfectly clear glass. Italianware remained popular, but more as decoration. Utilising the clear glass they were able to produce, three Dutchmen are credited with the invention of the refracting telescope: Lippershey and Jannsen, makers of spectacles and therefore skilled with lenses, and Metius. It was Galileo Galilei who popularised the device in Italy, producing his own version in 1609 and presenting it to the Doge of Venice. He also used the device to study the heavens, therefore basically inventing modern scientific-based astronomy.
> 
> I am not going to go into the science of them as I am a) a historian and b) only got B/B at Double Award Science at GCSE. This has plagued my existence ever since (who thought a humanities degree would be better for the world than geology? Me. That's who. I Am An Idiot.)
> 
> There are many types of telescope, but refractive lensed ones are the oldest known. Newton built the first reflecting telescope, using mirrors and not lenses, in the 1660's. Where I live is near Jodrell Bank, which houses the Lovell Telescope. It is the third largest radio telescope in the world. The telescope made partially from gun turret mechanisms taken from scrapped World War I era Revenge-class battleships.


	9. Jaime I

* * *

 

 

Jaime slept. Lions danced a stately pavane within a strange dream that involved ravens with far too many eyes and a strangely bookish wolf in the company of a Green Man. A lioness, three cubs dead at her paws, lapped wine from a shattered chalice. His pillow, a muscled stomach, twitched occasionally as his silvering gold hair and beard tickled bared freckles. Brienne’s belly. Her perfect torso. Even with that definition and cording so unseemly in a woman, it proved far more comfortable than her non-existent but mercifully bare chest. No bosom to soothe his tired head. No flaring hips and womanly wiles. 

 

Just Brienne. Six foot and more of dependable honour. Naked. In his bed. Where she belonged.

 

Then Tyrion poured a pitcher of ice-cold water over both of them, grinning like the idiot that Jaime loved, and the lions drowned and the wolves ate the corpses.

 

* * *

 

“I hate you, little brother.”

 

“You love me, Jaime. I am your favourite sibling.”

 

“I suppose you don’t try and kill me by trying to infect me with various interesting and exotic strains of the Pox?”

 

“There is that, but without me you would not have a ridiculously tall woman in your tent each night.”

 

“...I suppose I do owe you for the wench.”

 

“My gambling debts and mistresses agree. She doesn’t have any tits whatsoever, does she?”

 

“I can kill you, you know?”

 

“I know, but you wouldn’t. I’m your favourite sibling.”   
  


 

* * *

 

How the Sword of Tarth came to the Kingslayer. That in itself could be a folksong.

 

Everything began with Renly’s death, as so many things did. Renly died, and Brienne, infatuated with the man in the way of the soft-hearted romantic, and one of his honour guard upon the day, blamed herself. No matter others may have been nearer to the young commander. She did not care that she led a small detachment of infantry and had not even witnessed the killing blow. All she knew was Renly died, Loras destroyed himself in grief, and everything was her own damnable fault.

 

So she did what any disgraced young soldier would do in an untenable situation caused by their own supposed idiocy - and the wench was stubborn and honourable and took many things to heart far too seriously - and quietly removed herself from the Baratheon army. Best she be far from causing harm than make the mistake of leaving her commander alone once more. This, in her mind, could not be called deserting. Her own self-awareness knew she proved a liability once, and therefore could be one once more. In fact, Brienne did nothing but save others from suffering and death by making her way as far away from others as physically possible.

 

According to her, obviously.

 

Jaime just laughed in her face when he heard her tale of woe, before him and her. She punched him, blacked his eye, and, horrified, apologised profusely.

 

As she travelled home to Tarth, dogged by her personal disgrace, Brienne tried to atone. Smallfolk helped, advice given. Maidens fair rescued from dire situations. The usual sort of thing that a goodly knight in some fairytale would do, the penance of an Arthurian legend in flesh and blood. In other stories she would now be wed to a princess dazzled by her knight in dented armour, or wearing a dragon’s head as a hat, or the emir of a minor country ending in unpronounceable consonants.

 

Then, of all of the forest glades in all of the world, she happened to stumble into the one where some fool with a deathwish tried to rob Tyrion.

 

“I wouldn’t try it, if I were you,” he told the thief. “I am small but I am lethal when pressed.”

 

“Gissyermoneyyercunt!” The assailant waved a morning star threateningly, looming.

 

Tyrion, bored, shot him through the chest with the crossbow Jaime bought him for his name day earlier in the year.

 

“They never listen, do they, ser?” He grinned broadly at the blinking soldier before him - and apparently it was not until quite a time later that he realised Brienne was female, which possibly was lucky as knowing Tyrion he’d have tried to shag her and everything would have ended messily for all involved - and took the bolt from the very dead man’s gaping chest wound. Never one to waste useful ammunition, he wiped it upon a fortuitous dock leaf and reloaded the bow.

 

“Now, brave warrior who just stood there and watched while I fought for my life, you shall accompany me back to my good fellows since you obviously have nothing better to do.”

 

And that was that. Apparently. According to Tyrion

 

* * *

 

“Oi, Kingslayer.” Bronn kicked him in the shoulder, and Jaime grunted into the straw mattress. The dreams proved more and more strange as they plodded slowly northward. Black dogs and flayed carcasses, and that endlessly elven Green Man. “Get yer arse up, sunshine. Tyrion’s back.”

 

“Fuck off.” More sleep. 

 

“He’s got a woman with him. He says she’s a woman, I an’t got no way to tell ‘til she pulls down her britches.”

 

“S’not unusual.” Tyrion trailed endless women, some more negotiable in their hourly affections, some perfectly happy to fuck his brother for naught but insatiable curiosity and the debauched rumour that clung to the man like a slightly sticky caul. He once asked his little brother why, if anything, they tended to like him, and he’d replied something about a cock the size of a small child’s arm and a goodly heavy purse stuffed full of their father’s gold.

 

“She an’t a whore. She’s a friggin’ soldier. Enormous, an’t seen nothin’ like it.” Another kick, and Jaime wondered blearily if he should just bite Bronn on the calf and have done with it, but he might catch something foul. His brother’s liege man crunched off, negotiating a general miasma of dirty clothing, tankards, and scraps of armour. Jaime grumbled, but, intrigued and too bloody awake now, he crawled from his bed and staggered into the jarringly-bright morning. Too much mead, too little food, and a sense of impending death; the normal existence of the soldier. Fantastically aware the he still tended upon the side of intoxicated, at least some more of the beer ration could remain untouched until later. 

 

Cersei proved to be the cause of her twin’s endless self-destruction. Always was, always would be; her twin, pressed thoroughly under her feminine thumb and keeping him dangling as some beautiful puppet. She married Robert Baratheon, became queen. Jaime killed the Mad King, grew notorious, lost a hand in a vicious brawl with the Brave Companions and grew morose. At least he slaughtered that bastard Hoat. The Kingslayer, golden-handed Jaime Lannister, in love with the one woman he could never possess. Fevered assignations in silent chambers, abandoned septs. In Cersei’s gilded bedchamber as Robert fucked his endless stream of whores. Stolen kisses. Jaime, never vain, sometimes wondered if his lovely narcissist of a sister only possessed him as it was the closest Cersei could ever get to making love to herself.

 

She drove men half-mad with those feline looks; golden hair, cheekbones sharp, green eyes that matched Jaime’s own. Cersei turned men to fools with a touch of her hand, drove others to treason just for the softness of her throat and the swell of her breasts. But Jaime, who she supposedly loved? Sweet Jaime, who felt only truly alive in war and rutting between his sister’s soft thighs?

 

Cersei destroyed her brother through wanton selfishness. She saw the Kingslayer without his hand and cast the man aside like so many of her toys before. Nothing less than ideal for the Lannister Dowager Queen. She had Joffrey, as perfect and glorious as Jaime at seventeen, arrogance and madness and more Targaryen it seemed than Lion, and he prayed to Gods that abandoned him years before that she may not quite as twisted as he dreaded.

 

So Jaime drank, to dull his wounded pride and broken heart.  

 

“Brother, let me introduce you to my newest aquisition. I was unfortunately ambushed by some thug,” and he waved a broad hand as if a half-man being mugged by a thug was really nothing, “but thanks to your splendid name day present, I survived. I have brought you a gift in return, I do hope you like it. I’ve not had time to do any wrapping, couldn’t find enough ribbon.” Tyrion appeared far too fresh and chirpy for a short-arsed smug bastard who casually shot criminals to death with a crossbow. No regrets, obviously. Unlike the other men in their small band, he dressed to his status; a strutting peacock of dwarfness, in velvet and leather as black and green as his mismatched eyes. A rakish hat, replete with an ostrich plume dyed teals and emeralds, sat tilted upon his coarsely unruly locks. He seemed entirely too pleased for himself, a rogue and a cad and utterly unrepentant. No wonder women found him both revolting and intriguing in measure.

 

“Ta-da!” Like an alchemist creating  gold from base metals. In hindsight, producing something precious from nothing was exactly what Tyrion did.

 

Ridiculously tall and twice as hideous, the woman tried to edge behind a nearby tent. She wore armour more akin to Roundhead mail and boiled leather, which she did explain to him eventually as being from the Baratheon armoury, a lobster-tailed pot clutched in one hand, a morning star strapped to her freakishly broad back. She also appeared very young..

 

“Interesting wench you’ve got yourself there, Tyrion. Not your usual calibre, but I suppose we’re at war and you can’t be too choosy.” Pacing forward, the world swimming rather alarmingly as his head decided movement was not the best of ideas and craving a flagon of wine to ground him, Jaime stood before the girl. She stared obsessively at her boots. “Do you climb her with rappel line? Gods, she’s massive.”

 

She refused to look up, though her tanned flesh which tended towards the burned and peeling turned an ugly shade of maroon. Straw hair and eyebrows the colour of nothing and dust, masculine hands, heavy shoulders. How could one person be so unfortunate? 

 

“Jaime.” Tyrion. Something in his voice caused him to pause. His brother’s expression, the shiver of an eyebrow, indicated the merest trace of displeasure; the dwarf always collected the broken, the bastards, the outcasts. Always defended those different to the norm, mostly to piss the hell out of their father, but Jaime knew Tyrion possessed a streak of honour that seemed to bypass himself and Cersei. Tyrion, he knew, was a far better man than others wished to admit. Ugliness hiding treasure, only seen by himself and a privileged few.

 

When he turned back to the woman, she was watching him warily with eyes so astonishingly lovely that they brought her hideousness into a sharper focus.

 

Poor bitch.

 

* * *

  
  
Brienne could fight. She moved with the fluidity of someone who danced with demons at her heels, a melding of muscle and sinew and a half-feminine/masculine grace that Jaime found fascinating to watch. In war she transcended her physical shortcomings; in that helm, face covered, confident of her ability and never dragged backwards by her gender, the woman showed her true beauty. 

 

She confused Jaime. He found himself thinking of her strong back and thighs, pondering the true length of her legs. If she really was as flat-chested as she appeared. If that wide trembling mouth, all peeling lips and honking voice, had ever kissed a man; sucked a cock, pleasured a woman. Would taking her be like laying with a woman or a coltish youth?

 

He called her wench, and she insisted her name was Brienne. They bickered and argued, he insulted and she responded almost eagerly. Often they tore chunks from the other’s flesh with words and sarcasm. Her tactical knowledge proved lacking, but Brienne’s looks belied a sharp intellect hungry for teaching. She shared his tent as that seemed to be the most gentlemanly option. Far better for Brienne to be untouchable by the common soldier than allowed to sleep amongst the troops. For men starved of womanly affection even she may inflame lusts. To be honest, he rather not have a good fighter with wandering hands beaten senseless by the Tarth woman. At least, at first, that was what Jaime told himself. Where he was, so was Brienne. The shadow of Cersei attained his own shadow, one taller and heavier and just as masculine, but definitely his.

 

Brienne was not Cersei. Perhaps that was why he ended up falling in love.

 

She possessed an overly-honed sense of goodness and justice, a childlike view of the world as black and white when Jaime knew from endless experience that everything was smeared in ashes burned a myriad of grey. True innocence. He found himself enjoying sparring verbally, and when she offered to teach him to fight with his remaining hand, offering without pity, grew more respectful of his freakish and loyal lieutenant. Brienne drove herself, felt too much and too keenly, wore her heart bleeding and vulnerable upon her maille sleeve. When she smiled, and that occurred more often as they trudged across Cheshire and into Lancashire, she attained a plain and honest sweetness that he realised with shock one day - several weeks into a sobriety he never even knew he entered - was beautiful.

 

Then came the day where Brienne saved his life, almost died, and the world shifted.

 

Just a normal skirmish, albeit in difficult and woody terrain. Jaime drew his centre column back to support the lightly-armed flanks, muskets supporting the tactical switch, planning to pincer the enemy and re-enter battle to the rear of the Parliamentarian division. A tactic he used ten, twenty times previously, hugely successful. The cavalry waited for a signal, Brienne as always with her infantry boys who grew protective of their odd female leader, but with the trees, wet ground, and impossibility in relaying tactics, it all went to shit.

 

Melee did not terrify Jaime until he lost his hand. Deadly and artful with a sword, his skill was widely known and admired. Even now he drilled his corpsmen, relying on Brienne to demonstrate any necessary moves, but he kept the wench all for himself. No other soul saw their sparring which became the most frustrating and enticing foreplay he ever tasted. All without a fuck against a wall, but the heat and glistening sweat and alive-ness made up for any sexual torment. Her laboured breathing, red cheeks and shining eyes; half-orgasmic standing before him in battered leather. Gods, being with Brienne, combining lust and battle and her - obsession.

 

Men moved to the incorrect places, muskets fired prematurely, and the scuffle turned into an all out brawl. Jaime, caught in the middle, ended up fighting clumsily, using his golden hand and steel vambrace as a rudimentary shield as weapons slashed and crushed, men died, and he understood with a piercing clarity and a heavy hit to the head that gave a strange sort of stunned peace that this was where he would die; in war, with his men, bleeding out and insensible upon hostile ground. Doing his duty by his son. His king.

 

An arm found his waist, and, half-senseless, he clung desperately to the man who dragged him from the scrum of bodies. 

 

No. Not man. Brienne. Spattered with blood not belonging to her, expression slack and horrified and somewhere else where another commander died and she lost her sense of self. They went down, side by side, and then she covered Jaime with her big muscular body and begged him not to die, not on her watch you bastard, don’t you dare leave me.

 

The pain seemed surprisingly dull, more of a throb than a sharpness, colours a kaleidoscope and frayed at the edges. He looked into her beautiful eyes, at her dearest frightful face, at those too pale eyebrows knitted into a tangle of despair, and if she had not been wearing her bloody helmet Jaime would have leaned in and kissed her as they died.

 

But she was. And they didn’t die, although it seemed rather close.

 

In the aftermath, where they managed to win the skirmish and rout the Parliamentarians, where Brienne tried to walk off a sword wound to her stomach with a grimace and then a dead faint, Jaime realised he loved her. He loved the ugliness of feature that masked her true wonder, the grace and kindness of the truly good. How she did not cross her legs when she sat. When she asked one of the men to cut her hair in the style of the other soldiers and she did not care for fashion; Brienne just wanted her damned hair cut and it proved easier to deal with when essentially scalped. The freckles. Her milky flesh scarred and bruised. Brienne. She smelled of cut grass and smoke, sweat and copper. She saved his life, not because she wished for accolades or money or promotions, but because she refused to let a man she cared for, trusted, liked even, die in her arms. She would rather lose her own life, the brave beautiful fool, than lose Jaime.

 

“Does it hurt?” Seemed a stupid thing to ask. The wound, the slash, seemed short but deep. Not enough to pierce her organs, but ugly and stark; a red spitting mouth in a sea of white foam.

 

“I have had worse.”

 

“Bloody stubborn wench.” He handed her the needle, freshly dipped in scalding water, and she threaded it with surprisingly steady fingers.

 

“My name,” and she squeezed her eyes shut as he began to sew one-handed. The stubborn Tarth woman refused anyone else’s care. “Is Brienne.”

 

“My wench.” Tender. He mopped his handiwork with a clean rag, admiring the stitching. “That will be spectacular. Not that anyone would notice another scar on you, they’re more than likely staring at your ugly face.”

 

“At least I have two hands-”

 

And then he kissed her upon her wide, generous, gasping mouth, and lost himself to the woman he knew he did not deserve, but Brienne, clinging back despite her pain and responding with such clumsy masculine enthusiasm, did not seem to understand she could do far better than a one-handed Kingslayer. 

 

Thankfully for Jaime, she never did seem to realise that.

 

* * *

 

“What, Tyrion? What damnably important event necessitated barging into my tent and soaking me at stupid in the morning?” Not yet light, not this far north. Faint pinky tendrils threatened the darkness, the edges of the sky purple and royal where sun touched night. Too cold, too north, and too foreboding.

 

“Bronn’s got news.”

 

The leather-clad man gulped down a beaker of ale, wiping his mouth with his arm, nodding in acknowledgement.

 

“Couldn’t it wait? We’re only two days out and I want to go back to bed. Unless you’ve finally got him with child, and congratulations are to be given, brother. Am I to be an uncle?” Apart from his women, the one person apart from Jaime Tyrion seemed to enjoy spending time with turned out to be his surprisingly lethal right-hand man. Bronn, arrogant but supremely talented in matters of the underhanded and frankly dishonourable, suited his brother. They fed upon a mutual understanding for mayhem and intelligent spy networking, and proved invaluable for intelligence gathering. Aware of their unquenchable hunger for women, Jaime nevertheless enjoyed teasing.

 

”Ah, I do keep forgetting that our nephews and niece are your children, mostly because I do not wish to think of you swiving our sweet sister. We will just have to try harder, Bronn my sweetling, Jaime seems to be broody. Perhaps you should breed your Tarth-ish war-mare if you are that desperate?” Unflappable sod.

 

“Anyway.” The whippet-slender Cambridge-man surfaced from his beer, scruffing a hand through his hair. “Siege already at Winterfell, bit of a shock I tell you. An’t got too near, but the banners are of the Flayed Man. Clegane’s there as we thought in the castle, and the treacherous cunts are tryin’ to take down the gatehouse. Boltons.” He spat neatly upon the frozen ground.

 

“Crows to feed upon the corpses of the living. Ned Stark was always a fool to trust Roose. Never trust a man who sires a son like Ramsay.” Tyrion tapped his stubby fingers lightly upon a barrel, then shook his head. “This makes the situation rather more delicate than we considered. A third faction was never factored for. This is your decision, Jaime, you are commander.”

 

Jaime squinted at the sky; snow threatened yet again, the faint cloud cover yellowish as the sun struggled to rise. So many choices. Leave the children to their fate. Ride to York and surprise Robb Stark where he wintered, vulnerable and without support. Join the Boltons and besiege the citadel at Winterfell. What would be the sensible course of action here? 

 

More importantly, what would Brienne do?

 

“Break camp. We might fight the Starks, but leaving children to the Bolton and his bastard would be unforgivable, brother. Even if they have the Hound as their protector, what can one man do against the might of the Dreadfort?” The decision came easily enough. It felt correct, and good, as if taking the difficult option may make a Kingslayer less damned in the eyes of Gods and men. Brienne would approve. He needed her quiet accolade more than the love of any other, flesh or otherwise.

 

“Someone has been spending rather too much time with their wench,” Tyrion mocked cheerfully, before clapping a hand over his grinning mouth. “As a wonderful addition to our heroics, how thoroughly irate will Father be? Oh, I wish we could see his face when someone tells him we rescued Winterfell. Hopefully he shall be so apoplectic that he will drop dead on the spot; we can only pray for divine intervention, can we not? Otherwise I might be tempted to get a little over-excited with my lovely crossbow, and I would rather not be hanged for a crime everyone else wishes they could commit.”

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Today's History Bit:**
> 
> _Woman Soldiers_ :
> 
> Throughout history there have been notable examples of female soldiers; from the one-breasted mythical Amazons to the women currently serving on the front lines. Obviously before the recent period they were far less common, but have been noted in historical texts from ancient times, and not a purely western phenomenon. 
> 
> Artemisia, Queen of Hellicarnasus, was the naval commander of Xerxes of Persia, the king who fought the Spartans in the 5th century BC. Herodotus, the Greek historian, praised her incisive tactical planning and intelligence for war.
> 
> Triệu Thị Trinh rode a war elephant and commanded a battalion of Vietnamese warriors to halt the incursion of the Chinese in 3rd century AD whilst barely out of her teens. Her brother refused to fight, so she fought to save her lands and territories. She ultimately lost and committed suicide, but is still a national hero to the Vietnamese.
> 
> Boudicca, Queen of the Iceni, opposed Roman rule in the early years of Imperial British occupation. When her daughters were raped and she was beaten (and before this the Iceni had co-operated with the new regime) she went to war. Colchester burned, London invaded. Finally the Romans quashed the rebellion and it is unknown what happened to her. Suicide or death by illness seem to be the common theories.
> 
> Zenobia. Warrior Empress of the 3rd century AD. After her husband and stepson died, she took the throne of Palmyra and conquered Egypt, taking the province from Rome and creating the Palmyran Empire. She held huge amounts of modern-day Turkey, the Middle East, and North Africa, before being captured by Rome and dragged through the city in golden chains. In happier accounts she impressed the Emperor so much with her dignity and beauty (again...) that she was released and allowed to marry a Roman citizen. Otherwise she starved herself to death, was beheaded, or died through illness.
> 
> Of course there are countless others from other cultures; Native American, Hindu, Japan, the gaggle of women pirates in the 14-19th centuries (a Japanese woman once had the largest and best-equipped pirate fleet ever assembled), the women who fought dressed as men in both the English and Civil wars. I salute them.


	10. Jaime II

* * *

 

“A group ahead. They look armed.”

 

“Isn’t everyone these days? Be bloody stupid if they aren’t, wench.”

 

They rode knee to knee, companionably, horses plodding through mud and sleet and cold icing Jaime’s remaining hand even through his leather gauntlet. Brienne suffered and said nothing; lips blueish and eyelashes wet starfishes over lake-deep eyes. From the rear, as tall and straight and blond, they seemed as brothers.

 

“I don’t like this weather, Jaime.”

 

“It’s snowing, of course you-"

 

  
“No,” she hissed, and the Kingslayer frowned at the shrillness. “No, I know it is snowing, I am not stupid. But it doesn’t feel right. We’re in May, and there here it is still winter. Is that not wrong?"

 

  
Dear Brienne, who never ventured past Derby previous to their jaunt northwards. Summers in balmy Tarth, or snug in Kent with Renly Baratheon’s retinue where apples grew and early autumn welcomed cider and harvest.; she seemed most indignant that riding to Winterfell involved freezing conditions. 

 

Fucking cold though. 

 

“I’ll get you warm when we make camp, wench.”

 

She swatted his thigh, but a twitch of her mouth signalled her amusement. Willingness, also. If nothing, Brienne always did as her captain commanded.

 

* * *

  
  
“Lannisters.” 

 

“Shall we?”

 

A grin. Unpleasant.

 

“We shall.”   
  


* * *

 

The man had a fucking flaming sword. 

 

Jaime ducked as the blade smashed into the tree, bark chipping like shrapnel and bursting into spitting ash on contact. Heat sizzled, hair singed, and for a bleak and half-wild moment he wondered if his perfect locks now burned. Would this maniac ruin that Lannister gilded mane; would the lion be scalped? The second ticked onwards, and he threw his body weight fully at the swordsman’s presumable legs, covered in a singularly dirty red robe. 

 

Red robe. Fire. Rh’llor. 

 

He knew of one of the red priests, the Spaniard who came to the court of the Mad King to persuade the fire-worshipping cunt to take up the foreign religion. Floris? Something like that, anyway. He spent half of his time drunk, or whoring, or both at the same time. Rebellion came, Doris disappeared like all uppity religious types when war occurs, Jaime killed the King. That was, indeed, that. Rumour had it that Baratheon had a priestess-whore lover, who promised the rebirth of some long-dead warrior and sacrificed smallfolk to appease the Lord of Light. Not that Jaime believed. Far too cynical to believe peddled tales, and having met Stannis Baratheon over a period of time, it was obvious that the Colonel of the Parliamentarians had no desire for sex. Jaime met castrati with more libedo.

 

The metal hand proved most useful as he thrust the weighty appendage upwards, aiming and hopeful between the billowing skirts of the robe. Perhaps he should have had his hand removed years previously; a bludgeon, a shield, and now an effective ender to whatever nonsense the priest gabbled in some foreign language, the hand was not missed in situations such as these. Jaime always fought dirty; it set him apart from his wench.

 

A grunt, a stagger, and the Red Priest sunk to his knees as fist connected with balls. Jaime punched him hard in the temple, just to make sure the bastard would not move, then swung himself back into the skirmish.

 

Never get between a Lannister and his goal. Especially when aforementioned goal is supported by his one true love.

 

* * *

 

Another one? How many of the bastards did they have?

 

Brienne and some enormous and half-dead seeming hulk traded parries, the wench carefully assessing the ability of the enemy before her. Sandor Clegane had nothing upon the ugly desiccation of this walking corpse; scarred, maimed. For a person lacking the necessary perception by only possessing the singular eye, he seemed overly able. His bastard sword sliced, fire sizzling and Brienne scuttling back, the rictus of a grin twisting that broken face.

 

“You fight well, girl.”

 

Brienne grit her teeth, driving forward and aiming for the man’s thigh, but an easy and almost lazy block sent her back to defensive stance.

 

”I am not a girl. My name is Brienne.”

 

They circled, touching swords. Imperceptible movements. Like the wench, the corpse man moved with that loose-limbed ease denoting soldier. Round and round. Every so often a test of defenses, and then back into just waiting for a moment where guard dropped and a true opportunity opened.

 

“You are a bonny lass. Excellent form. Someone good taught you.” 

 

Scars tightened as he grinned once more. 

 

She relaxed, and Jaime’s hand flew to his own sword as the man stepped so easily towards Brienne who stumbled and slithered in the sticky slush, arm colliding with the ground as she dragged herself to comparative safety. No other sound, not now, but ragged breathing tightening in the woman’s chest and a faint growling from the warrior before her.

 

Laughing. A bubbling, thick-twist of laughter from the corpse man.

 

Stiffer now - she must have knocked herself hard - Brienne forced herself into stance.

 

“You should come with us, lass. You’re obviously wasted here amongst the Lannisters. Don’t you wish to serve a greater cause? Taking from these golden Lions and giving their riches to the peasants they destroy? It’s a good cause. You got honour, girl. It’s writ all over your face.”

 

No.

 

Jaime strode forward, breaking whatever spell wove in the bloodied glade, and punched the man who dare try and poach his wench in the back of the head. It was as striking an ice block; reverberations up his arm and dull aching in his shoulder.

 

“And we have the maimed Lion. That hand would feed a village for a bloody year.”

 

Another punch. The man refused to fall. Another.  Bone shattered as Jaime hit and hit and still the mouth spoke and the hate roiled like the blood dripping from the trauma metal wrought upon flesh.

 

“Why won’t you die?”

 

Corpse had the audacity to sneer. His teeth, stained red, seemed overly sharp, as if dining upon human flesh drove the dead body to greater strength. Jaime pulled his arm back, gold smeared scarlet, but as his concentration flickered a large supernaturally strong hand wrapped about his throat and squeezed. 

 

Having his hand removed at the wrist was, until that moment, the second most terrifying experience of Jaime’s life. Definitely the most agonising. Feeling blunt fingertips dig into the meat of his neck, tightening like a vice and seemingly unbreakable, attached to a man who would not die, exploded every feeble terror he felt previously. Fingers gripped, pain grew dizzyingly and exponentially; he stared, limp and wordless at the man who was killing him, aware of grey mist and cold and those blazing eyes filled with loathing triumph growing larger and larger until all he saw were flames and death.

 

“I have, Lannister.” He spoke so quietly that Jaime, mostly unconscious, could not quite understand.  “More times than you would care and yet I live. But you. You will-”

 

“Beric. Drop.” Red in his periphery. Authority and command.

 

An instant later, just as Jaime gave himself to the quiet sleep of peaceful smoke, his body thudded to the sodden filth of the path.

 

* * *

 

Brienne stroked his face when she thought Jaime was asleep, or, as now, unconscious. He let her caress the overly-sharp planes of his cheekbones and forehead, half-opening one eye. The wench, when not being watched, had a softness to her expression, a dreamy quality that misted her pretty eyes and softened the marks between her eyebrows. Assessing the situation, not wishing to stop because these were rare occasions when out on the road, he nuzzled in to her lap and murmured, mouth pressing against her leanly-muscled thigh.

 

“Please stop trying to get yourself killed on my behalf?” A faint catch in her throat, a tremor, before the girl was replaced by the warrior, all flatness and iron. “I can fight my own wars.”

 

“Can’t have someone steal you.” Was that his voice? Hoarse and bruised. He struggled upwards, frantic, rubbing his stump along the puffy bruised flesh that ached even without being touched. “My voice. Shit, Bri. What has happ-”

 

“Try not to talk. Thoros says it will heal, or he did, he didn’t know the damage. But he is sure it will.” Her arms wrapped about his naked shoulders. He rested against the woman, bare battered torso against clean linen and the muscles that he half-envied and all loved, and her mouth carefully brushed the nape of Jaime’s neck. Cradled against Brienne’s pelvis and chest, against essential goodness and protected, he kissed her hands with the painful dip of his head, resting his cheek on the dirt-stained skin that never scrubbed clean.

 

“Who?” She’d understand.

 

“The Brotherhood without Banners. Some sort of vigilante group protecting the people. They are going to Winterfell.”

 

It hurt too much to speak, to have to concentrate on softening his vocal chords so the ripping pain did not sear. Instead Jaime shrugged, hoping Brienne would understand the meaning.

 

“I’m sorry, what-oh! Oh, you want to know why? I was surprised, since I couldn’t think of a reason why they would need to go there, but it turned out to be a very long story. Thoros does like talking.” Amused resignation; Brienne obviously regaled with excruciating minutiae from the Red Priest. Drunks tended towards the garrulous; Robert Baratheon sprang unwantedly to mind. He talked the legs off several donkeys and a multitude of other farmyard animals.

 

“In short,” and Jaime thanks the Gods, “Beric, the man who strangled you, do you remember a Beric Dondarrion?”

 

Again, a familiar name that he struggled to place, before recalling a tall, handsome redheaded man with a rogue’s grin and a penchant for putting himself in ridiculous situations. Shit. The flame-wielding swordsman, the second one, the eyepatched warrior, his Corpse, was the Lord of Blackhaven? The last time that Beric Dondarrion was known of, he rode forth to capture the Mountain at the behest of Ned Stark and was reported dead.

 

A nod, a motion with his hand for her to continue as he mulled.

 

“He had become great friends with Thoros, who saved his life. Or, I am not quite sure about this, it seems so fantastical Jaime, brought him back from death with his fire magicks. Beric was killed by the Mountain, and then again by others,” which explained Corpse’s little rant about being dead several times over, “and each time Thoros had him live.

 

“Corpse.”

 

Her hair brushed his neck as Brienne rested her blunt chin on his shoulder.

 

“Every time he comes back, Thoros says, Beric forgets a little more of his past and the wounds of the deaths never disappear. They were riding to Weatherby when they saw this boy on his own, also coming north, an angry child with a very fine sword, and. Jaime. It’s Arya Stark. They have Arya Stark with them. Beric remembered.”

 

He twisted to look at her dented, honest face, his own glazed with confusion. 

 

“They were going to bargain for her release with whoever is at Winterfell, so they could have riches to give to the poor.”

 

“Not now. Ours.” That hurt. Vehemence was not the best of emotions to force through mangled throats.

 

“I have asked Thoros if we may take Arya with us, and I-I. I will pay it, Jaime, I will not allow you to use your own money when they hurt you so.”

 

Idiot wench. Promising her own coin for the release of a child she did not even know, because she embodied honour. 

 

The Warrior lived. Her name was Brienne.

 

* * *

 

With the injuries, and the need to recover, they rested two days at the skirmish site, only one day out from Winterfell.

 

The Stark child was amusing. Tyrion thought her hilarious. Jaime found he liked her hissing anger, her burning desire to stab Thoros and Beric for both ransoming her and even more because they blew her convincing boyish illusion, and her oddness. Nothing to look at, like all of the Starks that followed Ned, but in a few years and with a good bath or two, she may prove to be quite a handsome woman. Very small, runty, but filled with piss and vinegar and an insatiable appetite for mayhem. Perhaps when the war ended, and he and Brienne could retire to the country, to one of the Lannister estates, they could have a daughter with eyes the colour of sapphires and a thirst for swordplay.

 

He tried not to dwell upon Myrcella, captive in Dorne and poised to marry the youngest son of Prince Doran. Her presence in the south west should have ensured Dornish neutrality, but such ran the hatred of Sunspear towards the Lannisters. Understandable, to a point. The rape and murder of a sister and the death of her children by a Lannister dog damned everyone. Fuck the Mountain and his sick pleasures.

 

Arya also provided a plump young man who cooked very well and refused to leave her side. Podrick Payne; Jaime knew the cousin. Quite the contrast between the pink-faced youth and his iron-pale silent kinsman. Ilyn was quite the favourite with Tywin, even if the rest of the family considered the tongueless man frightening in parts, but Jaime often drank with his father’s pet executioner and liked that someone could finally be forced to listen to his endless prattle and not interrupt. 

 

Brienne adopted the youth, said she needed a capable squire. A noble, even of a cadet house, deserved to be trained in the arts of war even if he seemed quite unfit.

 

“Remember to move your feet, Podrick.”

 

“Yes, mis-ser.”

 

He held a sword like a carving knife, and was possibly the most useless lump that Jaime ever set eyes upon, but he was endearing in the way of a calf, or particularly loyal but dunderheaded dog. Brienne liked him, and that was enough.

 

Arya slumped next to him, watching the proceedings with jealousy. She complained often, at length, waxing upon why Brienne was wasting her time with Pod, why he was stupid and had a stupid face, that he should be cooking because he was more of a woman than all of them, and that he definitely was stupid. Brienne, she spat, should teach her. She could fight. She was brilliant. Syrio, whoever the hell that was, taught her to water dance like the Greeks. She had a proper sword, not that battered blunt blade Pod wielded gingerly. She would kill the entire Lannister army with a needle.

 

“Don’t you ever shut up?”

 

Arya stared at him, sullen and hating.

 

“Don’t you ever stop being a cunt?”

 

Jaime grinned. Unwillingly, so did the girl. The peace did not last

 

“And now Pod hates me. He was all upset at finding out I’m a girl, and I pointed out that I’m not, and that he’s just stupid, and then he said about me being a great lady and I told him that Sansa is the only lady now at Winterfell since Mother-"

 

When the silence hit him, Jaime glanced over. She stared straight ahead, furious at herself as tears slid through the dirt upon her cheeks. 

 

“And don’t tell him I’m crying. He’ll think I’m a girl, and that’s just-”

 

“Stupid?” Jaime offered.

 

Arya rubbed at her face, sniffled, then leaned against Jaime with a murderous expression. He wondered about hugging her, but she had a vicious knife hidden somewhere about her body and he wanted his kidneys to remain intact. Even if Arya needed a hug. She needed one so very desperately, but perhaps he was not the one to give this girl affection. Pod, kind and non-threatening, who followed Arya about like a lost puppy even before he knew the girl’s true gender, was more equipped. Squashier, too. More comforting than a handless Kingslayer.

 

“I won’t tell him if you don’t,” he offered. “Unless you piss me off, and then I’m going to tell him that underneath you want to play with dolls and wear pretty dresses the colour of his eyes and have his babies, or whatever women do.”

 

“Brienne’s a woman.”

 

“Brienne just is Brienne. She cannot be categorised into anything apart from being Brienne.”

 

“Would she train me?” Her weight was so slight against his arm, just skin and hollowness. Sacks of sugar weighed more. “She’s really good.”

 

“Not as good as I was,” and that was a truth. Brienne could outspar the vast majority of swordsmen in the country, but she played by those rigidly honourable rules that sometimes, when faced with an opponent who was less than fair, could leave her exposed. “She is a bit too nice. Good form though, excellent footwork. She’s quick and agile for someone so big, but has a fair strength behind each blow. She prefers using maces, but when I gave her Oathkeeper she took to that.”

 

“You gave her your sword?”

 

Jaime watched his woman, expression curiously softened. “She will not wear a ring, or a necklace, she is the least vain wench I know. What else can a man give a woman as a betrothal gift if not the family sword?”

 

Arya shook her head, disgusted. “Giving away good swords is criminal.”

 

“Not much use for it now, squirt.” He clonked her gently on the head with his metal fist. “Oathkeeper is for a person with a right hand that does not detach every evening.”

 

* * *

 

The snow grew deeper with each passing minute as they wound around the headland towards Winterfell. Despite the protection given with the hills to their left, cold roared and thrashed and ice spattered pain across red-raw flesh. The faintest smudges of black and red signified the Boltons still besieged the fortress, but the castle, brooding upon the landscape, seemed mostly intact.

 

Arya, riding with Brienne who she formed an odd sister-bond with since she met no one else like the wench in her tender life, bare-headed and gloveless, threw her head back and howled into the wind.

 

Jaime did not expect her howling to be answered.

 

From the bleakness, from the lashing snow and frozen low-lying mists, golden eyes burned and grey fur materialised. He managed to stay the weapons of his men as Arya flung herself into a snowdrift and waded towards the enormous grey direwolf who pressed her whimpering body tight to the child and laved her fingers with an immense tongue. 

 

“Nymeria,” and the girl sounded darker, glottal. Murderous; The Stranger caught in the body of a thirteen year old girl, and twice as hellish. “Tell the Boltons the wolves are home and Grey Wind nears. The pack hungers. Ghost will know, he always does. Make sure they are ready.” She touched her thumb between the great beast’s eyes, rubbing along the dipping ridge of the immense skull, and the wolf stepped back and Jaime knew - he just knew - that the message would be delivered even if words could not be spoken, before the animal disappeared into the maelstrom of winter.

 

She stood, black-silhouetted against white.

 

“Winter is coming.”

 

Then sullen Arya, daughter of House Stark and possibly the most terrifying child Jaime ever met - more so than Joffrey, so much more, because she was  _ sane _ \- started to laugh.

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Historical Bit**
> 
> _Today's Part: The Dire Wolf_
> 
> Dire wolves are real! 
> 
> Or at least were until the last ice age circa 10,000 years ago when they were wiped out. This mass extinction event saw the loss of many of the large mammal species i.e. sabre tooth cats and mammoths, and many of the carnivorous animals were lost due to a lack of food sources. _Canis dirus_ (fearesome dog) was not as large as the ones in ASoIaF, and were mostly found on the north and south American continents. Two types of subspecies have been found - one taller and with smaller teeth, the other squatter and with a larger bite. It is the largest recorded specimen of the genus _canis_ (apart from my dog, when he's on the bed and hogging the duvet he seems ten feet long) and weighed up to approx. 110kg (eighteenish stone in proper money). 
> 
> Many skeletons have been recovered from the archaeological wonder that is the La Brea tarpits in California. The vast scale of fossil finds suggests that dire wolves hunted in packs. For this reason tar pits are known for their carnivorous fossil record; it is postulated that a large mammal may die within them, scavenging carnivores try to eat the corpse, but are also lost to the tar.


	11. Davos IV

* * *

 

 

When he returned to the Colonel’s tent, the Red Whore smirked with claret eyes and lips blood-smear red. Her paleness, her snow-flesh as white as the northern moors, glowed in the dimness and Captain Seaworth understood viscerally, warily, why other men lusted for Melisandre; his own wants ran plainer, more towards storm-blue eyes and strong jawlines. Towards the Colonel, he knew, even if tendrils of guilt and disgust still haunted each warm touch, every flicker of a smile, teased from the granite-faced leader.

 

She knew. The bitch knew.

 

“I have see much in the flames,” she purred one late day, just before Nantwich. She spoke of death and grief and blood of kings, and Renly died. Perhaps these were just the babblings of a madwoman, where words could be attributed as miraculous after a fact, where vagueries may fit with something, but a tiny alarming voice within Davos’ sensibility asked, often, what if the woman saw what was to come. What if she saw heaviness of hearts and spirits tormented by what they never could have? What if she told Colonel Baratheon of his right hand’s perversion. The sweet inverted temptations of Dorne, disparaged and mocked, could see a man killed in the sterner north. Martell, by dint of blood and power, by popularity and sheer devil-may-care temerity, was protected. By contrast, what could a mere common smuggler, raised to a station by the man he worshipped, who was his God, and that in itself stank of blasphemy, do when drugged by a vice that only the gilded could practice?

 

A nod, and he took his place to the right of his love, aware of Melisandre’s ruddy gaze sweeping and searing.

 

“I have seen much in the fires,” she murmured, voice silk and rust. Next to her, arm wrapped tight about the witch’s own, Selyse perched uncomfortably upon a stool, head bowed and black-garbed. Neither woman hid their closeness, their desire. Sweet kisses. Delicate touches forged in the mutual love of the flames. Stannis allowed the women their relationship in the confines of the tent as long as their debauchery did not leach into the consciousness of the masses; the marriage bed proved cold for him ever since the deaths of their little stillborn sons. Ever since Shireen.

 

“The black hound suckles wolf cubs as death stands before them. Flayed men laugh. Lions with hearts of sapphire round upon their own kind.”

 

“What else?”

 

She pressed Selyse’s hand to her pale cheek, as if sucking life and heat from the flesh of the silent woman. Everything diminished with Melisandre near. Even the torches burned less bright compared to her blazing beauty. The star ruby about her neck, from her mother who was a dragon she laughingly once said, a dragon from the sea who became a slave to the eastern men, glittered.

 

“Winter is coming.”

 

* * *

 

“Seaworth.”

 

“Colonel?”

 

Far too late, almost morning, even in this snowing hell. Robb Stark, pointed and twitchy, his great dire wolf uncharacteristically upon edge, awaited them as the armies merged a day out from Winterfell. The boy wished to ride immediately, but the forced march north through this maddening weather that spread now to Chester and the northernmost of the Welsh counties meant that the Baratheon troops were nigh on exhausted. One day, perhaps two, and enough food in bellies and sleep would allow for greater support. They camped, ice-laden and uncomfortable, in the hopeful shelter of a tor, but even outwith the howling wind men froze and fretted.

 

“I have lost my wife to a witch.” Matter-of-fact, without rancour.

 

“You could have her burned, I am sure that would appease R'hllor.” The archness struggled, Seaworth biting back the sharpness and acidity. The reward; the quirk of lips, the relaxation of that grinding jaw. Tension marked Stannis; it marred his brow and shadowed those blue eyes, turned muscle to steel and destroyed his teeth. Often the urge to smooth those blemishes - though they were not ugly, because they created Stannis the person, warts and all - almost overcame the captain. Just a caress of his thumb, a petting, a beg for relaxation, just so the man could be free for a moment of the cares heavy about his broad shoulders.

 

“You are finding it more difficult to restrain yourself in the woman’s presence, Davos. I commend you for keeping your tongue”

 

“I do not trust her.” He poured sack, took a draught, offered it to the other who took it with a brush of fingers and a burning heat that suffused the captain’s cold-thrummed face. His reaction to the merest touch from Colonel Baratheon; his weakness that he tamped down like tobacco in a pipe writ in blood across his cheeks and under his beard. In daylight, in obviousness, he tried to avoid direct contact lest his shame be displayed to the world

 

“She approached me before she found my wife.”

 

Thankfully the flagon Davos held proved mostly empty as he dropped it to the table with a clay-thunk and a crack. The pottery shattered, into large pieces that were easy enough to busy himself with clearing away. Melisandre, wrapped about Stannis. Whispering soft sweet words of lust and fire into his lord’s mind. Sinning with the Red Priestess. Long limbs tangled, furred chest against her ripe breasts. Her mouth. His cock. Gods. Seaworth’s treacherous mind, thudding inside his skull, tortured him with a myriad of scenarios.

 

“She app- The nerve of that woman.”

 

“She is beautiful, Davos. Even you can see that.” A joke, often said in camp, of how Davos remained true to his wife’s memory and did never look upon another woman. How strange that by assigning such a noble trait that the reality, the sin, could be contained. Never expected to whore, or leer, for Captain Seaworth was known to be a good man, the best of men, the kind sense to Baratheon’s rigid drive. The expectation of others kept him safe. Oh, if needed he would perform with a woman, and his usual desires pictured curves and long hair. Davos was not as Renly Baratheon who prefered men, or even Martell who took both sexes with an equality common in the Dornish. He loved more than lusted, with a burning loyalty to those he respected - Marya, the greatest of helpmeets, the mother of his sons and a fierce and proudly good woman.

 

Stannis. His God. Love chose to have Seaworth love the man, and, like the inexorable vastness of the sea, mysterious and beautiful and dangerous, how could a man hold back the waves?

 

“Undoubtedly, but she is wicked. A madwoman. A heretic. Is that why she came to the camp, to seduce you to her fire-worship?”

 

“Yes. I did not entertain her.”

 

“Of course you did not. You are unimpeachable.” Finally the wine and shards were clear, and he sank back down next to Stannis. “You are too good, too-”

 

“She was not what I wanted, Davos.” The single candle between them guttered, sending shadows flailing and spinning. “As I said, she is a beautiful woman. Intelligent, passionate, possessing excellent qualities in which a man could lose himself. Fine child-bearing hips, ones that could produce a son. I have always longed for a boy, we both know this.”

 

“And that has always been unfair to Shireen.”

 

That ghosted smile, the faintest of nods. No one else dared voice the truths that haunted Stannis. The mood seemingly changed, from serious, to brotherly, but this - whatever this was - seemed as if the Colonel was receiving confession in some churched rite before some terrible deed. These were words for a septon, not a smuggler; words to be poured into the ear of a godly man. He shifted, elbows upon the stained sticky wood, letting Stannis speak. After a long day of Robb Stark and Oberyn Martell bickering, of fire-seeing and being cuckolded by a woman in red, after perhaps a little too much rough wine and with the threat of death, and with this cold, perhaps Colonel Baratheon just wished to be listened to by the one person he trusted to be absolutely honest.

 

Honest in all matters but one.

 

“I have always thought she and Devan would make a splendid match. She is clever, he is handsome, and they both are wise beyond their years, even if your boy can be wild. They will wed, I am sure. Her dowry is large, though I know he would have her for naught but her sweetness.” He paused, looking at nothing and that was frightening in itself.

 

“When this war is over, Davos, promise me whatever happens that Shireen will be cared for? Cruelties can be inflicted upon a man who loses, and if not upon him then upon the family.”

 

“You are maudlin tonight.” Anything to stop the last prayer and testament of a man who thought he seemed destined for death. He could not help himself as he rubbed his fingers soothingly across the back of Stannis’ hand. The Colonel blinked, silent now, thoughtful-seeming; a still-life in candlelight before everything changed.

 

“Damn it all.” The Colonel’s voice cracked, Stannis catching up the captain’s large calloused hand and bringing it to his cheek. Stubble scraped, Davos feeling his heart shredding. “Tomorrow I may die. I must say this, I must know. I know you would die for me, you have almost done so on too many occasions, but if you do not kiss me, I will not be responsible for my actions.”

 

“Stannis-”

 

“Damn you, smuggler! I know you love me.”

 

The mouth against his was rough and dry, demanding, aching. Seaworth’s hand found cropped close hair, shortened fingers trailing to cup the nape of the man’s neck as the kiss deepened, the world span and time ceased to exist. Sweetness. Wine. Righteousness. Pausing to breathe, and Stannis, could Stannis be called beautiful? said his name so reverently that Davos slumped against the man’s chest, mouthing his throat and kissing his fingers over and over.

 

“The witch could never compete. I took your fingers, and you saved my soul, and from then you have been mine. Give me this small mercy, I beg of you.”

 

Davos fell to his knees, fell to worship. Fell. Was damned with salt in his mouth and long fingers tangling his hair.

 

* * *

 

The snow muffled hoofbeats, and the rider seemed to bear down upon them without warning. One moment greyness and white swirled, and the next a half-dead rider upon a sweat-scrimmed horse burst into view. Seaworth caught the reins as the beast wheeled, exhaling dragon-plumes of steam as Robb Stark dragged the man into the command tent to be plied with brandy and blankets. She turned out to be a woman, of lean build and sharp feature, recovering with admirable vigour of youth and hale-heartedness as she gulped the strong spirit.

 

“Thank the Gods that one of you came back.” Robb knelt by the woman’s feet, rubbing sensation back into her long limbs as she shuddered and swore with prickling heat blooming across her skin. “The others aren’t back, Theon is gone, I know not where and-” He paused, eyes narrowing, before leaning closer. “Winter is coming.”

 

Melisandre. Fire-dreams. That phrase. Seaworth wrapped his arms about himself. The words dripped with darkness.

 

“Winter is coming. I saw Theon.

 

Stark’s hand, lightening fast, caught the woman’s wrist splinter-making tight. She did not flinch, but kept his gaze upon her freckled, wind-burned face. Mormonts bred strong women. The heir, like her mother, was equal to a man. She reminded Seaworth of Marya; the same capable strength.

 

“Where?”

 

Her eyes met his, pale grey upon Tully blue. Something Davos did not understand passed between the Bear and the Wolf, something ancient, terrifying. Something deeper and primaeval that could never be considered in the softer south. It was said the Mormonts could skin-change into the beasts painted upon the house crest, that Alysane shifted and mated with a bear and bore two small cubs. Northerners with their strangeness; Starks as wargs, half-giant Umbers. Karstarks and their winter-chilled bones bred of wights. Boltons. Skin-flensing sadists with eyes like ice.

 

“Winterfell. Ramsay Bolton.”

 

The young man paused, the handsome face frozen before he nodded, tightly, and that strange amber-glow turned his bright eyes eerie. Grey Wind twitched an ear before padding into the maelstrom. Dacey ran her hand along the creature’s sleek flank as it departed, and it almost seemed a salute.

 

* * *

 

Robb Stark could not wait. Conditions worsened, snow piled deep and threatening as his mood blackened, as the world dipped into a madness of bitterness and frost.

 

“We are wasting time.”

 

Martell, his patience drum-skin thin, aggressively tightened the girth holding Tyrell’s saddle to the fleet but kindly gelding the Rose straddled. Willas laid a hand upon the Prince’s shoulder, the gentle caress of a lover and an equal, calming Oberyn back to a seething bubble of dislike. The opinion of the Dornishman regarding the overly-young, inexperienced, foolish boy who ordered them to plunge into madness, who demanded a lightly-equipped vanguard to scout Winterfell ahead of the parliamentarian cohort, was exceedingly low. Hypocritically so, but Prince Oberyn did not seem to care. He was indeed a most singular sort of man.

 

“Will you hurry? For the Gods’ sake, come on Martell.”

 

Martell turned upon his gleaming leather-shod heel, stalking towards the redhaired youth.

 

“You may be fearing the death of your lover, foolish boy, but I will not risk my Tyrell for your traitor’s sorry hide. We all know why he fled, little Wolf. Ironborn blood will out. And yet you obsession will damn us all."

 

“He is not my lover,” Stark, rangy and lean, did not flinch as the Viper hissed. Brave.

 

“And you are not a Stark, and Jon Snow is not a Targaryen bastard.”

 

“You dare talk of my family, when you have sired how many daughters with your whore?”

 

Seaworth shifted, going to move between the two men, to separate, because his role advocated peace, but the Colonel’s hand brought pause. Perhaps this was needed; either one would be beaten in a bloody fight, or the air could finally clear between the two men. He did not understand the reference to the Snow boy, even if the others clearly knew what was said. The dead king had not sired bastards. Jaime Lannister once said, drunk as the Smith and aching in the way the slayer of a King must, that Aerys prefered setting fires than fucking whores. If he did take a prostitute to his bed chamber, there tended to be nothing left the morning afterwards. Then Lannister turned green, vomited red wine and bile, retreated back behind a golden-hard shell and mentioned nothing more.

 

“Beautiful daughters. More man than you shall ever be, and more woman than you ever deserve. Snakes of the sands who are vicious and lovely in their deadliness. And you? You fuck squids.”

 

“Better than cripples.”

 

The knife glinted, folded steel and burnished to a razor-edge, laying almost casually against Robb Stark’s cheek.

 

“Anything you may attack, boy - myself, my children, my country. Anything. But not him.”

 

“You are no better than me, Oberyn.” Each word encouraged the dagger, Stark bravery and bravado and foolishness. “No, you are less than I. At least I keep myself for one person, when you have pleasure from a hundred. At least I am loyal to Theon, despite what he does. Your loyalty belongs to whoever you want to fuck, and then you destroy them when you find another toy.”

 

Someone swore, Latinate, the high-Church language and not the vulgate, and Willas clumsily slid from his horse. Without his cane he moved painfully, leg stiffened, but his sainted anger proved more than his physical difficulties. Used to the kindly bookish nature, the indefatigable cheer and optimism, Seaworth realised with a strange sort of horror that the face of the man, and he was attractive in the academic, clever way, all cheekbones and dark eyes and secret smiles, was reminiscent of portraits of the young Olenna Tyrell. No wonder the Queen of Thorns adored her eldest grandchild. No wonder she mourned his loss to the parliamentarians.

 

“You will stop. Now. Both of you.” The sharpness, the command.

 

“My Ty-”

 

“No Oberyn. This stops now.” The Dornishman considered then slumped, throwing his dagger into the snow with a snarl.

 

“He said-”

 

“I heard what he said. I heard what you said. Both of you. You will apologise. You will shake hands. Then you will be civil to each other. I will not tolerate this, not when this could break the entire alliance, not when all we have achieved could just crumble to dust. Especially not when a boy is in danger, and the one who loves him is hurting. It is wrong for you to lash out, Robb, even if I understand why you are. I know you fear for Theon. I know you mourn your parents, that you find being thrust into leadership hard. You are so young. I know this. But this is no excuse. Act the leader I know you are. Make your parents proud. Make the north proud. Be the son they need, the leader they love and respect. Oberyn,” and the tight anger in Willas’ voice softened, just a fragment. Unbidden, Martell’s hand laid across his lover’s neck, as if unable not to touch, as if addicted. “You would do the same as Robb. You did the same. Others are ruled by their hearts as much as you, and you cannot punish them for choices you yourself have made. If you must hold others to impossible standards, let it be to ones you hold yourself to.”

 

“You are better than any of us,” Oberyn murmured, sweeping Tyrell into an apologetic embrace.

 

“Apart from Captain Seaworth.”

 

“No one is as perfect as Captain Seaworth.”

 

“Apologise to Robb.”

 

“Stark. Let us start over. Let us agree, then we shall ride for Winterfell. Please, will you accept my sincere apologies.” Martell squared his back, looked the young lord of the north in the eye, and offered his hand.

 

Robb shook. Honour demanded. Willas Tyrell dictated, and he embodied honour in frail winter roses and quiet resolve.

 

“I too am sorry.” He seemed so young, and a little lost and unsure, and Davos ached for the child he was before his parents died. “It has been difficult, but as Willas says, that is no excuse for my behaviour. I will endeavour to be better.”

 

“I was a horrible youth. You are merely frustrating. You will improve.” Oberyn clapped a hand to the Stark boy’s shoulder. “Now, where would the Bolton Bastard hide a pernicious squid?”

 

* * *

 

They rode.

  
As they grew near to Winterfell, where Flayed Men and Lions fought and died, the sky turned to blood.

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Historical Bit:**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> There is no history today. Today is a tired day. More history next chapter. Or you can ask me a question about something, and I shall try and answer it. Preferably historical, and if you have a burning need to know my highly biased opinion about something (with sources). Or anything at all. I'm open. I'm also wearing a dressing gown that makes me look like Rincewind. All I need is a hat with 'Wizzzard' on it, and I'm golden. It's fleecy.
> 
> Oh, the American Revolution started today in 1775. There, that's a bit of history for you. Paul Revere and all of that. I know little about US history, I apologise. I think I still suffer due to the wilful destruction of all that lovely tea.


	12. Clegane IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Major Character Death Warning.**

* * *

 

 

The Covenanter hated using a bow. 

 

None of the ones he discovered in the Winterfell armoury possessed the correct draw length, the right weight, every arrow seemed too meagre for his long pull. The string barely came to his cheek before the weapon groaned and swore, and he wished for one of those Welsh-made Tyrell longbows from centuries before that destroyed the French at Agincourt and Crecy. What was fifty pounds of force when he could pull thrice the weight? He loosed another of the precious arrows, swearing hopefully until the barbed tip thudded venomously, and Sandor, not playing by the rules of honour because that did not win a war, made sure each arrow was tipped with gatherings from the latrines, into the back of a Bolton pikeman.

 

Everything within the castle was gone. Food. Munitions. Wood. Gage, grievously injured by the cave-in of the gatehouse tower and as tenacious a northerner that there ever was, tucked himself away in the ruin and shot round after round as he slowly died. Clegane offered to cut the man’s throat, show him a mercy, but the cook, lips flecked with foam and blood, refused. He promised to take as many Boltons down as he could, the paltry ammunition and gunpowder strapped to his body. How the poor bastard could shoot straight, let alone pack the musket, remained one of those mysteries that Clegane never wished to solve. 

 

Sansa ate less than her rations, the puir wee hen fading into nothing but glorious hair and overly-sharp bones. The dress that fitted her so well upon the alteration hung loose, gaping about the waist and chest, and when she walked - and she refused, like Gage, and Cassell, and Hodor, and the children, to stop, to just rest a little moment - she pressed her lips too tightly together. Rested her thin hand against the stone-hewn walls for balance. Suffered. She had Sandor eat more, told him his strength would save Winterfell. Would save her.

 

She kissed him these days. Shy, and as any maiden faced with a hulking brute of a saviour, with a careful press of lips to his ruined cheek. When she needed to move about the castle, the Covenanter offered his arm. Sometimes he carried her, when she sobbed with hunger and exhaustion, cradled in his arms and desperate. He told her once, no, he promised her, one day when the snow devoured and the fires refused to light and all seemed lost, when they huddled like sheep for some semblance of warmth, that he wanted to marry her if they survived this. Her smile, so sad and tired, pierced. Sansa, who he lived to care for, because fuck the castle and the others, because the beating heart of the north was not stone but a redhaired girl who he loved with a darkness that threatened to the light, was everything.

 

“Drink.” She swayed, wrapped in furs and eyes overly-large in her hollow face. He took the flask wordlessly, took a mouthful of precious whisky, pressed the bottle into her stiff hands. “How does it go?”

 

“Thank fuck for the Lannisters.” A sentence never once spoken by any in the kingdoms until that day.

 

“Is Theon-?”

 

“I don’t know.” The spot where the Boltons had brought the once-playmate of the Starks churned with blood, pinkish and sick where hooves and feet had pounded the snow. “I don’t know, hen.

 

* * *

 

“The Boltons have a prisoner.”

 

Sansa was to her feet in a moment, falling against the Covenanter who pulled her into his arms and carried her. Her poor fingers, grease-stained from spinning lanolin-thick wool upon a spindle that he fashioned, for the spinning wheel had been hacked to pieces for firewood, and the girl had cried over that as it had been Cat Stark’s own, wrapped about his wrist. Some idea to knit clothing, with the carved bone needles meant for fancy work, for fripperies. They burned the heavier wooden sets. She was icy-cold. As was he. They all were. They all were dying because of a fucking war in which pretty ladies and children had no place.

 

“Who, Sandor?”

 

“I don’t know. I can’t tell from here. Need you to look for me” Patrolling the battlements caused a certain snow blindness that made recognition difficult, though he worried that perhaps he may need spectacles. He’d look a fucking sight in spectacles. Only Sansa knew that Clegane, and only him, the northerners were used to whiteouts and the bastard weather, had difficulties. Clothing helped identify when he could not see; Bolton always wore a pink cloak, the colour of innards and muscle tissue, the father forever in black. Others, nameless, wore the sigil of the Flayed Man. Everything seemed I don’t know. Would they die. Would they starve. Would someone come and relieve the siege. Where was Robb Stark, the little fucker. Where was Colonel Baratheon, the cunt had promised. _ Promised _ . Every question anyone asked him these days was answered with the same three words. “I don’t know the lad. Dark hair. Thin. Looks like the Bastard’s been beating the shit out the poor sod.” Probably more. He could not tell Sansa of the rumours surrounding Ramsay Bolton. She still had her innocence, and he could not shatter her world with tales of torture and sadistic pleasures.

 

She clung, he kissed her hair which had a woody-sheepish sweetness. Even now Sansa was beautiful. More lovely, perhaps, as she suffered with such dignity, with care for everyone else apart from herself. Daft besom should be more selfish, but her tender nature and her darkness, as black as his own, a grief and hunger for revenge that rivalled any hatred of Gregor, made Sansa walk an eternal tightrope between salvation and damnation. A natural goodness meant she prioritised everyone over herself, but her vengeance, tight-wound and poisonous, had her feed and care and love an instrument who could destroy who hurt her and the family. Sansa sculpted Clegane in her own vision, and he loved her for her passion, her hunger, and, more than anything, her faults.

 

“No. No! That’s Theon.”

 

The Ironborn. The one that Robb Stark seemed so upset at mislaying. Why he should care for one who would be so bloody stupid enough to get captured by an army containing Ramsay Bolton?. The Bastard murmured something in the bleeding man’s ear, remaining behind the Greyjoy lad to avoid being shot, forcing him nearer to the granite walls and into Clegane’s shortened range of vision. Clever fucking bastard. The manner in which Ramsay took his compulsions and lusts, honed them, made them into something terrible, was almost admirable. Others did everything to hide their twisted wants, or damaged faces, or inner demons. They hid behind walls, physical and metaphorical. Ramsey flaunted his, wore them as ribbons or medals spread gaudily upon his broad chest. Ballsy fucker. A strange respect, perhaps, but when did Sandor Clegane live by rules? He broke them, talked down to his betters, fucked whores, lived a life where death was certain though by what means he did not know. He mocked his own religion through every action. He loved a damaged girl who saw him as one fallen, one destined to save her, one whom he had no business loving in return. Perhaps with other circumstances he would have been like Gregor.

 

He snapped back to himself at her voice, that tremor of anguish that raked his chest. No. He was not like Ramsay Bolton, or Gregor Clegane. Sansa knew that. She knew he was better; she told him. She believed in his goodness, naive lass. If she repeated it, over and over, if she looked into his eyes with those wide Tully ones that made her so lovely, that shone with a raw honesty whenever she was with him, perhaps he himself would grow to think as she did. Perhaps with Sansa Stark’s insistence, Sandor Clegane could be a good man.

 

“Sandor, it’s Theon. Robb’s Theon. Oh Gods!”

 

“I know whose Theon he is, woman.”

 

She cringed, and he coddled her, stroking her cheek and apologising with a curve of his eyebrows, a tug of the scarred flesh at his mouth. Even now, even as they loved in their stilted and stumbling manner, Sansa still seemed skittish. Understandably, yes, but he never meant to hurt her. His anger, as roiling and black-natured as himself, never truly directed towards the girl; she was, however, the one constant. She was there, and sometimes, no often, bore the swearing violence of a Clegane temper. He exploded, raved and roared, caught her fear, and then softened into being the stoic protector she seemingly needed. Wanted.

 

“Please, Sandor.”

 

He kissed her cheek, her white forehead, her trembling lips.

 

“You have to go to the kitchen. You can’t see this.”

 

“But you save him? You have to save him-”

 

“Sansa. I am here to save you. I cannae save everyone.”

 

Her sob, and her understanding, broke him more than hunger, self-doubt, and deprivation ever could.

 

* * *

 

Jojen Reed moved like spiders; silky soft footsteps never heard until he was upon his prey. His demeanour seemed greenish, his eyes startling emerald and glowing in the odd light, his thoughts not at Winterfell but far beyond. He and Bran both were strange. A look, a closeness beyond humanity, and then they were out of themselves and riding wherever the fuck they went, where Bran probably walked and Jojen felt they truly belonged. 

 

Bollocks. All of it was. Green dreams his arsehole.

 

“Half an hour.” The boy’s voice, softer and strange and not of his own choice, pitched low. “Stay the hand of the Bastard for half an hour, Sandor Clegane. Make the Bolton wait.”

 

“How do you-?” Sansa had not time to run to the armoury, or the strength. Reed knew, just knew, and as much as he loathed all the fuss about green dreams and foresight, sometimes he wondered what exactly this strange elfin-child saw when he left himself within his own mind. 

 

“Dreams. They come in daylight now. When I do not sleep. Half an hour, Covenanter.” So very sure. Reed always spoke as a man, as someone ancient and knowing; those eyes witnessed events that a child could not comprehend but he processed as an adult. He lived as a man a decade older, a person with experience and empathy. Nothing shook Jojen. Nothing jolted. It was as if everything that occurred had been seen in those green-dreams.

 

Clarity struck like a hammer to the temple.

 

“You saw my face in a dream, didn’t you. When you called me by my name, at the forge.” 

 

Jojen touched his hand, just a mere fingertip to a knuckle, and everything turned emerald.

 

He saw flickers painted grassy behind his eyes of images past, seeing them outwith his body, witnessing as Jojen undoubtedly witnessed. The dream blackened, burned, and Clegane was taken. Pain caused by a memory of almost thirty years previously, as savage and brutish as when he was but a small boy, engulfed the network of scars across his face for the first time in almost three decades, the white-heat sending Sandor slumping to the stone and shaking as this boy with tow-hair and an impish face stood over him, radiating a power that he could never understand and exuding something almost akin to pity.

 

“I saw your face. Your name. Why you fear fire - indeed your only fear apart from fretting that perhaps there are Gods after all. You give lip service to religion. You wear the black of the Covenant, you fight in their name, and yet you barely believe. Oh, the Gods believe in you, Sandor Clegane, the true Gods, those of nature and death and the air and trees. Your Gods, who you reduce to nothing but a nuisance hidden in your head, they watch us all. Your name, from the Lord of Fang Tower. Your face. Yes, I have seen the way your father mourned the ruination of his son. Not your ruin. His heir’s ruin. You always were the spare, second in everything. The way the hearth sizzled with melted fat and flesh. Gregor laughing. That toy you took clutched in his hand as you fell to the floor with fire licking your hair. How they never told anyone. An accident, you fell. You were seven years old, and you fell into the fire because you were clumsy, and Gregor killed your sister with a smile upon his face.”

 

His shuddering hand caught the boy’s ankle, too slender in his grasp. The splitting agony dulled, but the aftermath turned his irises black-grey, like ash, breath hissing through gritted teeth.

 

“Tell me what happens.”

 

“Half an hour, no, more quarter of an hour, Sandor Clegane.”

 

“Tell me Sansa lives.”

 

Reed paused, then swallowed, his fingers carding through Clegane’s tangled hair and caressing the ruined cheek with a surprisingly sureness. No dreams came now. Anything more would break a man. Jojen, old, beyond everything. Beyond sense, and comprehension. The only other to touch Clegane with such consideration, without disgust or through monetary need and the hunger for coin, was Sansa. He should have pulled back, roared at the boy for his daring. Punched the presumptuous little shit on the nose.

 

“I know of one death, and it is not hers.” Something flickered, and Jojen wheeled between green and reality with the blinking of his eyelids.

 

Clegane understood. Nodded. Shit.

 

“Quarter of an hour then.”

 

“More ten minutes.” The boy gently moved away, the Covenanter’s hand falling to stone. “Good bye, Sandor.”

* * *

 

Theon bled surprisingly well for such a thin man, proved impressively stoic in the way of the senselessly abused as he stood, swaying gently, arms bound behind his back and shirt lying in tatters at his feet. His torso displayed a myriad of burns, weals, and what seemed unpleasantly like bites, black and purple and scarlet. Ramsay Bolton seemed to enjoy playing with his toys, lightly trailing the gelding knife across the bruised base of Greyjoy’s throat - strangulation always bloomed ugly - letting redness flow from the delicate thin line. Not deep enough to threaten life, but impressive to the point where Jon Snow flinched and his fat little Maester whimpered. Bolton paused, fingers prised the wound wider, and the man sickeningly cleaned his fingers with his mouth as he admired his work

 

“I am going to kill him.”

 

“Probably be a number wanting to.”

 

“Can anyone get a shot?” 

 

Clegane shrugged, the helplessness hollow in his gut. “We can try, but it’d take Greyjoy with the fucking cunt, blow both their heads off.”

 

“Would it be for the best?” The little Crow soared in the Covenanter’s estimation. “I know what that knife is, so do you-”

 

“What is the knife?” Sam interrupted, pasty and sick and gripping the battlement for balance. Clegane let Snow field the answer. A moan, and the sound of the Maester losing his meagre breakfast, and Jon put his arm about the plump shoulders to soothe. Even now Tarly ran to fat. If they truly became desperate Sandor grimly jested that Sam would keep them in meat for weeks. “Why would he? I mean. Why? Why do something like that to another person?”

 

Sam, sheltered Sam, far too sweet for this world. No wonder he was popular with the women and the children, like some soft kindness that seemed truly good and deeply cared. He itched to tell the Maester that worse atrocities were committed, that women were raped and slaughtered, their children dashed against stone, that his brother seethed with the same devilry but lacked the brain and machinations of Ramsay, that this was the normality of war. He could not, however, break the man with words. Sansa would be proud. Instead he took stated the obvious.

 

“‘Cause he’s a cunt. Because he can.” Clegane judged the distance for the tenth time, knowing he could make the shot with ease but his aim would not be true enough. The temptation of slamming an arrow through Ramsay Bolton’s leering mouth, or between his white-scrimmed eyes, or through his throat, turned to obsession as an earlobe fell to the snow, as the bastard licked the wound with a twisted hunger. “The wikit Ill Aun himsel’.” Bad blood, and Roose as a father. Of course the son would have tastes beyond the acceptable. Gregor was a coin of the same minted base. Thank the Gods the Mountain never met the Bastard.

 

“We are standing here watching Theon Greyjoy be tortured.” Sam’s voice, tiny and shaking. 

 

“Aye, Maester. And we cannae do a fuckin’ thing about it.”

 

Fingers unlaced Theon’s ragged breeches, a lover’s touch that revulsed, and the half an hour passed.

 

“I can’t,” Sam whined. “I can’t-wait. Banners. There’s banners. Oh Gods, Jon!”

 

Banners to the south, and the half an hour passed, and Sandor swore as the Lions poured into the valley and took the Bolton forces unaware. Red fabric, golden lions, and fuck’s sake, he was never so thrilled to see Jaime fucking Lannister riding some ridiculous grey horse like the knights of Sansa’s dreams, driving his spurs into the destrier’s flanks, Oathkeeper flaring in the strange stillness - the snow stopped, in the minute before the cohort came, everything all odd yellowness and eerie - and race through the snow towards Ramsay Bolton.

 

Who grinned.

 

He wore no armour, no weaponry apart from that gelding knife, just black leather and that flayed cloak. Bolton stroked Theon’s cheek, nuzzled his dripping throat, murmured something before tenderly kissing the young man’s battered mouth with a certain determination. Reverence. Possession. A tilt of his head, one last piercing look straight into Theon’s terrified eyes, and Ramsay slit the youth from pubis to sternum with a deft precision up-tug of that vicious curved knife.

 

Blood spattered, Theon fell to his knees. Not even a scream. So far gone, and no fucking scream, just relief upon his thin face, his hands, and they lacked fingers Clegane realised, fluttering helplessly at the thickening edges of the wound. Collapsing finally, after too long stark and red and hanging like a boneless broken puppet, he slumped half-naked in the snow as the whiteness leached burgundy underneath his broken corpse. No one could survive that. Not even that cocky little shit Theon Greyjoy, with his archness and sarcasm, his flirtations and dazzling smirk.

 

Sam threw up again, sobbing, as Jon wordlessly tore the bow from Clegane’s grip, taking surprisingly steady aim.

 

Lannister skirted Bolton. Unexpected. He slithered to the ground, gathered Theon in his arms and bundled the body to the front of the saddle before remounting with a keen agility that was not - wait. No. This was not Jaime. Whoever the person was, tall and blond and so similar to the Kingslayer that at this distance it was impossible to tell with the lobster-tailed helm’s visor disguising the man’s visage, they possessed a modicum of humanity and stupidity that no Lannister possessed. No Lion would try and rescue a dying man in battle, especially one that was not of their own cohort. No man would turn their back on Ramsay Bolton unless infuriatingly brave, or insanely foolish..

 

Another Lannister grey pounded towards the knot, the rider almost identical to the first. One fist glittered golden, the man wielding a sabre in his left hand and thrusting his stallion between the first rider and Bolton. A boot caught the Bastard in the face, though Ramsay was good - too bloody good, quick and clever - wrapping a solidly insistent arm about the Kingslayer’s calf, using the dead-space where his sword could not swing and the leverage from the beast’s movement to drive his knife deep into the horse’s heaving chest.

 

“Fuck!” The word echoed over the noise of battle. “Brienne, go! Go!” The first rider hesitated; of course Lannister would fuck a woman who looked like him. How very Jaime. First his beautiful sister, now someone with a build and height rivalling his own. Narcissistic prick. Not that Clegane cared. The Lannisters, avenging guardians who fought Boltons, who rode to save Winterfell. No, to save Sansa, fuck Winterfell and all the other cunts. He would even shake Tywin by the hand for this, although he suspected that fighting for the northerners was not the machinations of the old man. Tywin would parley with the Boltons, have them join his cause and take Winterfell. Jaime always proved a disappointment, and if the Imp worked with his brother, then nothing could be predicted. Perhaps the Lions ate each other now, turned upon themselves as war destroyed everything; perhaps the boy king’s madness proved too much even for his uncle-father. 

 

Perhaps even a Lannister could be turned to the side of the righteous when faced with an army wanting to slaughter children in cold blood.

 

Ramsay swung again. Under the knife hide split, the horse sank as he eviscerated the poor screeching creature, intestines slick and steaming in the snow as it collapsed to a trembling dying heap of flesh and blood. The Kingslayer, possessing a modicum of intelligence in the circumstances, managed to wrench himself free of the harness and throw himself to the ground, but the impact, wrong and steep and bone-jarring, sent the man reeling on hands and knees.

 

Bolton advanced, the knife dripping, a smirking delicacy of sadism curling his mouth into something almost beautiful.

 

Lannister scrabbled for his sword, found it, deflected the first scything blow clumsily and fell backwards as the blade spun from his grasp. At his hips his pistols sat untouchable, uncocked; perhaps a rudimentary bludgeon but the metal-wrought fist seemed more useful as he smashed into Bolton’s laughing face. The angle proved wrong. The punch too soft. The grinning widened, predatory, and even as the Kingslayer twisted to try and wrap his hands about the Bastard’s neck, Ramsay crawled over the golden prone body and sat heavily upon Lannister’s abdomen, cold-stiffened fingers working at the buckles holding the protective steel corselet flush to Jaime’s chest. Lannisters had squires to look after their armour. The ice should have turned those leather straps hard and unyielding but someone cared for that breastplate, oiled the joints and holdings, polished the surface with a rag and sand. Even in this harshness, even with Ramsay clumsy, the metal peeled easily away, leaving nothing but padding, leather, and linen between the knife and that vulnerable ribcage.

 

Jaime Lannister’s grip failed. He let his arms fall. He looked up into the yellowy sky, took a long shuddering and ice-pained breath, and accepted the Stranger.

 

Hooves. A scream of rage leaden-shot with heartbreak as the first rider, streaked with Theon’s gore, forced her horse forward.

 

Jon Snow found a shot, squinted, paused as he seemed to hear something that was soundless to the others, then dropped his stance. He seemed rapt, fascinated, the strangest expression sharpening his face into vulpine transfixion. Clegane snatched the bow back from the boy, movements rough and jerky, suppressing the urge to beat the living shit out of the fucking Crow. Jaime lay there surrendering to death. Brienne was too far away even now. Snow just stood there, useless, damning Lannister to die, and why? Did the pretty little bastard not realise the importance of the Kingslayer? Jaime turned out to be the one person who could save Winterfell; the Colonel had forsaken them, Robb Snow seemed to be nowhere, he himself was useless cooped in this granite cage as they starved and froze and died. The one fucking person, who was not even supposed to be on their side, and Jon fucking Snow with his stupid knowing fucking nothing about fucking anything, doomed them all.

 

Doomed Sansa.

 

He failed her. No marriage. No sweet nothings in peacetime. No little Clegane children with Tully eyes and dark hair. No vengeance for the one person who loved him as he loved her. Jaime would die, his battalion routed by the loss of their commander. The Boltons would take Winterfell, slaughter them all apart from Sansa, a perfect broodmare for the Bastard or even Roose himself, and -

 

Clegane could not consider what may happen if they took Sansa.

 

No. Mercy first. For all of them. The Boltons were not to have the pleasure of murdering women and babes. The last words Sansa, sweet Sansa, would hear would be Clegane’s expression of love. He failed her before. He would never fail her again, even in death. His eyelids prickled before he pulled the bowstring overly-taught. Fuck if it broke. If he killed Ramsay then the Dreadfort had no living heir. A final act of revenge, a last-gasp fuck you to Roose Bolton, just because what else could Sandor do but take as much blood from the enemy before the citadel fell.

 

* * *

  
  
Before Brienne’s sword thrust between his shoulder blades and shattered his spine, before the Covenanter’s hastily aimed arrow thudded into the base of his skull, and certainly before the delightful chance of killing beautiful Jaime Lannister came to fruition, the grey wolf with the glowing amber eyes appeared from seemingly nowhere and tore out Ramsay Bolton’s laughing throat.

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Historical Bit:**
> 
>  
> 
> _Today's part: Spinning/Knitting_
> 
>  
> 
> Knitting and spinning in the C17th were unlike today. For one the yarn used back them was far finer than anything today, and stockings were knitted on very small needles. When I make a pair of socks, I cast on about 60-70 stitches, I use a sock yarn which works bout at being fourteen wraps thick to an inch, and use needles that are about 2.5-3mm in diameter. I hate making socks as they are so fiddly and tiny. In comparison, a stocking from the 1640s used very fine two-plied yarn, and the knitter of [this](http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O107795/pair-of-hose-unknown/) pair of hose cast on a whopping 375 stitches, decreasing for the leg part, but still at almost twice the stitch count for the same area, this is some seriously fine work. It probably works out at 28-30 wraps to the inch.
> 
> To make such yarn, wool was needed. England was very well known before the Industrial Revolution and the coming of other fibres for wool production. It made sense that with the population fall after the Black Death of 1348 onwards, where intensive land-labour was scarce, for farmers and estates to invest in sheep. In this chapter Sansa spins wool that is still rich in lanolin, the natural oil found in fleece. It can also be prepared without. The wool is then combed to remove tangles. It is then ready to be spun. This can either take place using a [spindle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spindle_\(textiles\)) or a [spinning wheel](http://handspinner.co.uk/ashford-spinning-wheels/Ashford-Traditional-Spinning-Wheel.html) (the linked wheel is the same as mine, but mine is a 1970's reclaimed version in a lovely dark wood. I am a spinning hipster). To make a two ply, two bobbins of wool are spun, and then are wound together to make one piece of yarn. Plying adds stability and strength. 
> 
> I like wool. I collect it, pet it, put it away safe, and sometimes actually use it. After writing, knitting, crochet and spinning is my obsession. It used to be cross stitch, but spending a year upwards on something that has 36 stitches to the inch screwed my eyes up. This year I have been nice to a local farmer, who says I can have some of his fleeces for free. It costs more to shear a sheep than the amount a fleece sells for. Criminal.


	13. Jaime III

* * *

 

 

To surrender to death, to go to the Stranger peacefully; this was not how Jaime Lannister envisaged his last breath. Ramsay Bolton straddled him, the lack of grip from the golden hand meant his arms thudded back helplessly onto the churned snow, the bastard was aroused and probably had been since he gutted that poor sod, and Jaime knew he was going to die. The realisation proved oddly peaceful, even with Bolton raving astride him. No wonder Boltons did not stay married if this was their idea of romance. Not even a kiss first before going for the rutting. Appalling. But no, a man should be killed in battle, if anything. Or in bed with Brienne, the most worthy adversary of his decades spent upon this earth. Either option thrilled his blood. War and fucking. The entire story of Jaime’s life. 

 

“Get on with it then.”

 

Ramsay murmured, syrup-thick and heady, before wrestling the buckles of his chestpiece with frozen hands. Jaime idly wondered why the Bastard did not wear gloves, that frostnip would get the man’s fingers, but then blood would warm, would it not? Like washing chilled skin in a welcoming bowl of kettle-heated water, with pain at first where the temperature seemed too much and then colour returned and the tingling settled, and then all was right with everything. 

 

Bolton seemed to be struggling.

 

“Look, I can do it myself if you want?”

 

The Bastard chuckled.

 

“The other buckle is a little stiff, just so you know. Tell Pod that he’s fired.”

 

“You aren’t supposed to be amusing. Pretty, and thick as pigshit, but not funny. It is a shame I have to kill you. I rather like you, Kingslayer. ”

 

“You obviously liked the man you just killed.” Ramsay kept nudging him with a certain overly-excited part of his anatomy, roiling hips like the ocean as they tussled. It did nothing for Jaime. Perhaps if this was different, if he wasn’t about the be murdered, and if this was not bloody Ramsay Bolton, he might quite enjoy wrestling with some well-built person. He should have tried it with Brienne. She would have won, could have claimed her prize in her own inimitable way. He would have been ridden senseless and loved every last grip of the woman’s muscular thighs. “Or was it the death you’re hard for? Or me? I’d understand if it’s for me. I am bloody pretty.” 

 

“Theon was almost perfect - if I had just a little more time, but needs must. My Lord Father must prevail.” There. A sliver of emotion in the man’s voice. A crack of something that Jaime could dig at, work at. Yes, fine, he was going to die, but he was not going to allow Bolton to slit him open without mouthing back, stabbing with the only weapon he now possessed. In years to come, when Ramsay obsessed over his killing and the war because all soldiers did that, all soldiers remembered, he may think of what he lost to help his father triumph and Jaime’s dying words would echo around the man’s head, all arrogant Lannister drawl.

 

Finally the metal fell to the whiteness. The hard work of Podrick, who obsessed over armour and weapon sharpness and pert little Arya Stark who Tyrion almost adopted because she made him laugh, reduced to a steel carapace that protected nothing.

 

“So Daddy told you to kill your pet? How nice of him, does he like fucking up his offspring? Roosey doesn’t seem to like you, Bastard. Took long enough to allow you to be called Ramsay Bolton, didn’t it? Had to make sure he’d not fucked another dead man’s wife and bred her, I suppose, so he could get someone normal as an heir. How does that make you feel?”

 

Those pale eyes, a faint corona of ice about a blown pupil, narrowed. Jaime grinned, that genuine wide smile that made him the most handsome man in the country, the most eligible of any batchelor even if he had fucked his sister and sired her children, a damnable suicidal cheer that sparkled in his own green gaze. The world contracted, just him and Ramsay; the blade that pressed over the boiled leather underarmour was sin-sharp, scoring the hide without an ounce of pressure. An adjustment of grip, and Bolton leaned in.

 

“That’s a nice knife you have there.” Still conversational, almost light.

 

Hooves broke the white noise rushing his head. The uneven thudding of a slightly lame horse, that Valkyrie scream of the warrior woman. Dear Brienne. At least she could gather his body before this bastard did what he wished with his corpse. Jaime was quite attached to the remaining parts; he had given his hand a full funeral service, buried it under an oak tree at Castamere and entrusted Tyrion with making sure the bones eventually would be interred with himself. He’d prefer not to go to the Stranger missing any other bits. Ramsay seemed the sort to chop pieces off and keep them for himself, on a belt or necklace, as a trophy. Indeed, a human tooth hanging from leather cord about Bolton’s neck smacked him on the nose. That stung more than anything, even the humiliation of Ramsay Bolton writhing atop him, Jaime’s eyes watering.

 

The sky turned yellower, threatening, and he waited. Jaime Lannister had never been patient. Cersei once told him that his impetuosity would get him killed in the most foolish of ways, and he pointed out being hanged for incest was possibly one of them. This, however, this was a proper death. No one else, and not because of his beautiful twin, or his brother who he loved and wanted to strangle in equal adoring measure, or even Brienne. Of course the mad wench raced to try and save the sacrificial victim of Ramsay Bolton’s need to maim everything - that was who she was. To chase after her, to protect her, to make her go - that was all Jaime. None of this was upon Brienne. He just hoped she realised, one day, that she could not save the world, that in life whatever choices he made were his to make and that his myriad mistakes were to be carried as her own. She did not cause Renly’s death, or his, and for her sake he hoped peace would eventually quell that streak of guilt that turned her veins to boiling self-doubt. She did not seem the sort to kill herself for perceived crimes, at least. Too much honour, that one. He loved her for it.

 

Ramsay, and he’d made the bastard angry, hoo-bloody-rah, muttered unpleasantly, pissed off and irked by Jaime’s stabbing enunciation. Hot triumph blazed just for a moment. Maybe his death would be more unpleasant now, but hah, take that Bastard. Take that and dwell. A tilt of that ugly face, and the man’s heavy hand pushed upon the knife handle. Leather split, felted wool yielded, the blade met fine linen. Just a little more, and he-

 

The hell?

 

A bloody enormous wolf, and that was a Stark dire wolf if there ever was one, the size of Tyrion’s overly rotund pony but twice as shaggy, pounced and snarled and took the Bolton’s throat between enormous dagger-long teeth and clean ripped it from the man’s neck.

 

A second later, perhaps two, an arrow thudded messily into the base of Ramsay’s skull, a useless gesture, and then Brienne, roaring and panicked, leaped from her grey and plunged Oathkeeper deep into the dead man’s back. Something cracked unpleasantly. There was a lot of blood. None of it seemed to be his own.

 

“Well. Shit.”

 

“Jaime. You’re not dead. I’ve not kill-” She fell to his side in a blizzard of snow flurried knees and wetted cheeks.

 

“Wench, shut up.”

 

She did.

 

* * *

 

“Arya is where?”

 

Tyrion attempted to look stern, though those mismatched eyes betrayed his amusement. “She plunged off after her dire wolf, yelling something about winter having finally come.”

 

“Why didn’t you stop her, brother?” The muzzy qualities seemed to fade, thank the Seven, when he was safely deposited before Tyrion and ordered by the dwarf to drink a nip of cheap spirits to dull any pain. Brandy really was an excellent medicine, no wonder his brother guzzled gallons of the shit. A headache threatened in his temples.

 

“Are you an absolute cretin? She’d happily run me through, even if she likes me. Everyone likes me.” Drunk. No wonder the brandy was near to hand. Tyrion organised battles, divulged tactics to the necessary persons - tactics which hovered between soundly good sense and faintly dirty -  then retired to the command tent to drink himself cheerful once more. “I am the most likeable person in our family, Jaime. I have wonderful personal charm and qualities, I am clever, and possess an enormous cock.”

 

“Ah, but you do not have Brienne.” She told Jaime to stay with Tyrion, her face white and blank, before taking a fresh horse, Bronn, and command of the Lannister cohort. “I am therefore the luckiest of Lannisters.”

 

“Father is very upset with us. He told us to make a deal with the Boltons, offer them the north and take them as our own force. Oh dear.” The sarcasm bit harder with drink, the dwarf pouring another half-tankard and taking a long gulp. “If you are wondering, I am bloody freezing and I feel like I am about to die. You have no idea what being a dwarf means when there is at least three feet of snow at every turn. My cock will get chilblains and fall off, and then I shall not be popular. I will be less than even Cersei, pardon my Latin vulgate. I drink to stay warm, and we are almost out of brandy. I demand you to find some whisky.”

 

“Why is it when you are drunk you obsess about your prick?”

 

“Better than obsessing about how our family loathes us, how they shall have us killed, and that Daddy is rich enough to hire the best of assassins from across the channel, hmm? Well sod him, and every Faceless Man. Arya, before she disappeared like some avenging spirit of the Stranger said that the dire wolf who happened to maul Ramsay Bolton for the good of all was Grey Wind, which apparently belongs to Robb Stark. According to her, she must talk to wolves or whatever northerners do, they are a strange species are they not? the Baratheon forces approach at speed, and the vanguard of the leaders will be with us shortly. Excellent news for someone, though I am not quite sure if it will be for us.” He gave Jaime his mug, rubbed his small hands together. “I best try and put on my best diplomatic facial expression, as should you. You are not leaving me to deal with Stannis Baratheon alone, drunk, and mostly dead. Go and wash, or something. You look disconcerting. Try not to disturb the dying squid.”

 

* * *

 

“If there were four of the horsemen, not five, we could have had an Apocalypse.” Jaime took to whispered grumbling during the lull between the approach of Colonel Baratheon across the valley and the arrival of the man and his followers. The battle still raged, though wearing now to a gritty war of attrition; the Lannisters had taken the Boltons by surprise, but numbers favoured the Flayed Men, as did the Lions marching with little rest and food. Night threatened. At least Winterfell provided some sort of assistance; the large black-clad figure of Clegane and a smaller one, equally cloaked in dark clothing and somewhat more at ease with a bow, peppered the Bolton line. The musket from the broken gatehouse tower ceased earlier in the skirmish, but every so often a wilder shot rang out and sometimes actually hit something. 

 

The wolves prowled; at least the ones that lived did. In this modern warfare they seemed useless. The shock attack of Grey Wind proved one good but isolated deed; pikes and muskets kept the beasts at bay, two lay dead in the snow. Someone reported a small child who seemed to command the remaining creatures, but it was dismissed as a figment of an over-active and battle-battered imagination.

 

_ Valar morghulis _ . All men must die. Whoever howled the words, and the voice was young and high and piercing - murderous as they carried through the chill stillness - shrieked them often.

 

Robb Stark threw his reins to a startled Podrick and wordlessly disappeared into the tent where Theon bled, though how he knew the man was at the hastily erected Lannister camp Jaime could not tell. Thoros reported some time later that he refused to leave Greyjoy’s side. The other men, however, the four who came before him and Tyrion and proposed an alliance, seemed far less naive. 

 

“That’s someone who I did not think had the bollocks to switch sides.” Tyrion bobbed his head, indicating the frail-seeming man being helped from his horse by Oberyn Martell. Of course the Dornish allied with Baratheon. They never forgot the death of Elia and the heirs of the Mad King, the blame squarely upon Tywin and his Lannister brood. The appointed presence due to Doran’s on-going illness, Oberyn took his family’s seat upon the Privy Council. Jaime, guarding Robert in his white cloak of the King’s Guard, and the fat Baratheon king found having his predecessor’s killer guarding the new ruler thoroughly amusing, proved the target of Dornish radiated hatred.

 

“Who is it?”

 

“Willas Tyrell. Mace’s heir, Olenna’s favourite, the one everyone says is nice.” Nice sounded so weak upon the Imp’s lips, but in this instance he seemed to believe the sentiment. “Cripple. You know I love my cripples, I have a collection to go with my bastards. Such a shame I didn’t recruit Ramsay to my little gang, what fun we would have had.” Tyrion snickered. “Willas is a gem. We write, he’s a very good conversationalist and surprisingly radical given his upbringing though I am sure we have Oberyn Martell to thank for that, and we have the most polite arguments in which he apologises constantly for offending me. He is the intelligent sort, Jaime, so don’t try and talk too much to him, or you will give yourself away.” 

 

Tyrell lingered by his rouncey as Martell spoke with him, straightened the man’s cloak, brushed his shoulders and smoothed fabric. Oberyn appeared rather concerned, though the other smiled, shook his head, looked painfully tired. A tut, a touch of fingers upon the pale Tyrell cheek, Willas leaning into the caress.

 

“I am fine, please Oberyn. I will rest when this is done.”

 

“You are exhausted. You hurt. You must sleep, dear boy.”

 

Jaime raised an eyebrow, noting Tyrion’s expression mirroring his own, though far more knowing and much less shocked.

 

“You know what they say about the Dornish, brother. Nothing is safe, not even the sheep.”

 

“I thought that was the Welsh.”

 

“Oh, the Dornish are far worse. Doran married a Frenchwoman, how twisted and debauched is that?”

 

Extricating himself from the smother of his obviously concerned lover, Willas limped over, seizing Tyrion by the hand. He seemed to bubble as he breathed the chill air, a whistling unhealthy stickiness deep in his chest. The Imp grinned, returned the handshake, then Tyrell, wincing, leaned over to hug his Lannister friend.

 

“It has been far too long, Tyrion. You look so well! How are you coping with the weather? Is it not awful? Oberyn thinks there must be something wrong with the heavens themselves for such snow, but I pointed out that it is quite normal for the north to suffer so greatly. This is apparently the worst for several centuries. And this is Jaime? How lovely to meet you at last, ser, a pleasure indeed.” He held out his right hand, paused, then blushed and offered his left.

 

“And you. Hopefully Tyrion has not been quite as vile about me as usual.”

 

Willas laughed. He had a very pleasant laugh; it suited his general demeanour, that sparking niceness, but his breathing still rasped. “He has been most complimentary, and he is a man who I place much faith in to tell absolute truths even if hidden behind a layer of bored amusement. Are we to meet Brienne also?”

 

“Brienne?” The man who spoke, unmistakeably Colonel Baratheon, hard-faced and diamond glittering. “Brienne is here? With you? Renly’s Brienne?”

 

”Jaime’s Brienne,” Tyrion offered. “I think she has moved up in the world, at least my dear brother has a taste for wench flesh rather than Tyrell cock. Sorry, Willas.”

 

“No harm intended. My brother is quite, well. As you explained. As Oberyn says, it is not who we love, as how we love that is most important in life. Dorne approaches these matters rather more differently than us Welsh, far more practical. Oberyn has offered to take me to Dorne after this, apparently it is very conducive to healing wounds and all manner of ills. It all sounds idyllic, really. Much better than horrid wet Wales.” Martell padded behind Willas, never taking his eyes off Jaime. Still the same loathing, though tempered by unwilling resignation at this forced meeting, at the niceties spouting forth. If given a chance one of those wicked curving Dornish knives laced at the man’s belt would find itself embedded deep in Lannister chest cavities, but since he managed to not die today, Jaime preferred to continue surviving. He nodded a greeting, and the prince paused, then nodded back.

 

“Kingslayer.”

 

“Pervert. Shit. Martell.” It slipped out unbidden, Tyrion kicked him hard on the ankle, and Jaime tensed before the Dornishman smirked, hiding his amusement by burying his face into Tyrell’s neck.

 

“Oh, I am so sorry, how rude of me!” Neatly and diplomatically ignoring the insult, Willas displayed some of the most perfect manners. It was quite the wonder that his harpy grandmother had not married him off to one of the dozen or so eligible women who craved breeding, civility, money, and the title of being the next Lady Tyrell. Perhaps that was why Willas ended up in a grubby camp, ailing, battle in his ears, being quietly embraced by an over-protective Dornishman. Overbearing relatives did drive a man to strange decisions. As did wenches. “This is Colonel Baratheon, though I am sure you must have met before. The gentleman beside him is Captain Davos Seaworth, the Colonel’s advisor.”

 

Colonel Baratheon remained the most humourless person Jaime ever met. They had known of each other before the war, though Robert’s middle brother prefered the quietude of his forsaken island home than the excesses of the king’s court. One or twice they talked, of the weather and shipping and other mediocrities that passed for pleasantries. In his dark clothing, armour dented and well-worn, he cut an ascetic and raw-boned figure, hair cropped too short to disguise a threatening baldness and his jaw constantly working. 

 

“Are you part of the Lannister army, or a splinter?” Straight to the point. Stannis seemed thoroughly pained by the length of the pleasantries, irritable and snappish. “Does your father know that you are attacking the Boltons and therefore defending Winterfell, or is this a ruse by the Lannisters to lull the garrison into believing you are helping so as to take the castle without using force? We have reason to believe that you are acting upon your own accord, which may I add is both admirable and entirely idiotic of you if our intelligence is correct. I am more suspicious than my fellow leaders; I am here most unwillingly, and I will listen to-”

 

“Colonel.” Seaworth touched the man’s arm. Stannis halted instantly, mid rant. Jaime wanted that ability. How could he get that ability? Would that work on Tyrion?

 

“What the Colonel means,” and Seaworth had a warm, low, common voice that suggested the East End of London and seaspray, jarring amongst aristocracy but pleasing to the ear, “is that we were all surprised to hear that you came to Winterfell and seem to be trying to break the siege rather than join it.”

 

“I would ask Brienne,” Tyrion answered. “Her cunny seems to bestow my brother with unLannister thoughts, such as empathy, kindness, and general goodness to all mankind. Since she and Jaime began fucking, and please take into account that my dearest brother has given the woman his prized heirloom sword-”

 

“That I can’t use any more because I have no bastard right hand, and the weight and balance is all wrong! Don't you talk of Brienne like that, you little sh-”

 

“And also note that he is in love with someone who is quite as saintly as you, and we have indeed heard of your fine reputation ser, we have found ourselves at an impasse.” The dwarf ignored Jaime’s flesh hand smacking across the back of his surprisingly solid head. “I myself hold no love for our Lord Father, less for our sweet sister and her crazed offspring, though ‘Cella is a darling girl and if Tommen is taken away from Joffrey’s wrath then he shall be a dear little boy. I think Jaime finally realises that the love of a good woman is far greater than the mewling and anger of the persons we unfortunately are related to. I myself have not yet found such a woman, but I am lucky enough to possess an enor-”

 

“Tyrion!”

 

“Enormous,” and the smug drunk seemed insatiable, “number of girls from which to choose. Therefore, we are faced with the probability that Jaime has turned soft, we are indeed not allied to our father, and we rather like the look of your army. We also possess a frighteningly huge and thoroughly decent wench with whom you seem familiar, and she is good enough to vouch for us.”

 

Baratheon breathed in sharply, trying to rip Tyrion apart with an angry stare, but the Imp matched the man’s barely-controlled exasperation with a sardonic arch of his acrobatic eyebrow.

 

“Colonel?” Martell seemed to be bracing Tyrell now, carefully holding the man upright and preventing a collapse to the snow. The young man had turned a quite frightening shade of ash, the prince’s voice snipped and musket-staccato. Oberyn seemed ruffled. Anxious. “You are commander. You must choose. Quickly. Willas must rest and is being too stubborn to leave before you decide.” The heir of the Roses murmured an elegant apology from grey lips, head falling back to rest upon Oberyn’s shoulder; his visage, livid, thoroughly unwell. “It is this damnable cold. His chest. He should be a-bed.” Baratheon considered momentarily, before he spoke.

 

“Davos?” Now that was interesting. Mighty Stannis Baratheon, asking a mere common smuggler - they knew the stories, they knew why the saviour of Storm’s End missed his fingertips, they knew the loyalty of a man maimed by another but who devoted himself to his master even then - for the answer to a quite simple request. By his first name. No Captain, no Seaworth, and was that a respectful warmth in the flint-flaked speech?

 

Seaworth nodded. Baratheon responded with a nod of his own.

 

“You may join. The first hint of treachery and I shall have your head upon a spike overlooking Dragonstone.” He turned sharply and strode back to his horse, followed by Martell who half-carried Willas to his quiet palfrey. Tyrell coughed hoarsely into a lace-edged handkerchief, the linen turning red. No wonder the poor bastard looked so ill, bringing up blood. No wonder Oberyn, shuttered and grimacing, pressed close and desperate to his lover.

 

“Ah, Colonel Baratheon.” Tyrion grinned, talking at no one in particular - Tyrion adored his own voice, loved narrating. “Charming, really. I think he should threaten everyone, just because it feels so wonderful to live in fear. Such a pleasant soul.”

 

“A good man, for all of his faults.” A rebuke from Ser Davos Seaworth,soft and mildly disappointed like a kindly schoolmaster or a beloved father at a naughty child, dug deeper than any barb. 

 

“He must be, for you to follow him after he took your fingers.”

 

“He is the best of men, and I am honoured that he chose me.”

 

Jaime paused.

 

“What about Robb Stark?” The redhaired young man, seriously too young to cope with the world heavy upon his wolfskin clad shoulders, still remained closeted with the dying Greyjoy. Stannis, tall and straight and merciless upon his bay gelding, brought his leg forward to tighten the saddle girth, muscles working in his shoulder and lean arm as he heaved the buckles upward and slipped tongues into leather straps.

 

“What of him? He has other priorities. He is not here with us, and will decide nothing. I am the one before you making these choices, not Stark. I am the commander of these armies, Lannister. Armies who I may add are willing to serve for the good of the country, unlike the conscripted men unhappily trailing the bastard-born King. These men, these loyal soldiers, follow me. I am the leader of this rebellion. Someone has to take responsibility if another refuses or is otherwise detained.” 

 

“Or is dead.” Renly still haunted. “Another Baratheon head wearing the crown?” This was not drunken jolly Robert, or slyly amused and handsome Renly. Stannis, unbending and steel-forged, had not the charisma, the popularity, even the physical charm of his brothers. The same ambition, the same drive. All the same, every one of them, wanting more than was given. All for this game of thrones. “Another Fat Bob?”

 

“Who said anything about a crown, Lannister? A leader is one who remains accountable to his Gods, his fellow man, his country. Wearing a gilded coronet, placing oneself above others; that way leads to moral and spiritual corruption. With a king, we cannot be equal. With a council of men, who are answerable to their own, with a parliament, then we are free. No, Lannister, I will not wear any crown. I lead because I am the one man who is willing to shatter an entirely corrupt system just to rebuild with bricks of democracy and greatness. I am the only man who cares enough, who believes enough, to break the chains of tyranny and forge our country anew. That is why I am here, Lannister. Not for a crown. For the people. That is why we must win.”

 

Tyrion crossed his arms, shivering and sobering as Colonel Baratheon wheeled his horse and cantered into the gathering dusk. He plucked his brandy from where he hid the remnants, uncorking the bottle with his teeth and gulping back rough spirit.

 

“Pompous arse, isn’t he?” A hiccup, a belch, a look of satisfaction from the dwarf.

 

Davos snorted, a wry smile curving his mouth. “He’s our pompous arse though. I best go after him, he will have gone to find our army. Here,” and he pushed papers into Jaime’s hand, who clutched them awkwardly to his chest. “These are our plans for the siege, if you would wish to examine them. I understand if they need to be changed given the change of circumstances.” He paused, scrubbed calloused fingers through his salted pepper hair, an embarrassed quietude creeping into his tone. “Sers, I just wanted to thank you for looking out for the little ones in Winterfell - it may have not been your intention at first, but the youngest boy is about the same age as my smallest lad, and a father worries even when children aren’t his own. It was good of you, honourable. Not much of that about these days, and even if it were Lady Brienne who persuaded you, it’s still a measure of you as gentlemen that you have done what you have.”

 

“Being a tragic romantic turncoat for the good of all is so much more seductive to women than a mere Lannister lackey, albeit with plenty of gold. I shall have many girls wishing to sleep with me because of a thoroughly unearned reputation of niceness.”

 

“My little brother has a very singular obsession with fucking.” Jaime smacked his brother again, as ineffectual as the first time.

 

“I bid you good day, sers. I promise that you have our support, as we have yours.” Seaworth carefully pulled himself onto a very patient looking mare, fumbled at the reins, clicked his tongue, and set off purposefully after Colonel Baratheon at a pace akin to a rather slow and ponderous trot.

 

“What a thoroughly pleasant man. I think we should poach him and have him in our army. Poor Davos, must find it very hard being under Stannis.” Tyrion peered into the murky depths of his brandy, then pouted. “And now we are out of spirits, in the middle of winter, I am a dwarf, and I am going to die. Find me a woman, Jaime, I need to have a final fuck before my inevitable demise.”

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Historical Bit:**
> 
> _Today's part: Consumption/Tuberculosis:_
> 
> *sob* I am slowly killing my beloved Willas. I am far more horrible to myself than you lot. Masochism, thy name is Mouth. Yes, Willas' ill-health is due to entering the later stages of consumption. We can only hope Dorne helps, with the fresh air and warm climate so beloved of the TB sanatoria of the C19th/C20th. Many famous people died of this endemic disease that still kills today - Emily Bronte, Tutenkhamun, Keats, George Orwell. It has been found in human remains from the Neolithic period (c. Holocene/12,500BC) and animal remains from the previous epoch. Consumption was often associated with vampires, for after a death of a consumptive patient the rest of the family often ailed, and it was thought that the dead person drained the life of the living to fuel their necrotic urges. This may now give me an urge to write a vampire GoT thing. Marvellous. 
> 
> At the peak of the epidemic in the C19th, 25% of deaths were attributed to TB. 
> 
> Unfortunately in 1993 the WHO declared a global health emergency because of the surge in TB cases, which often has co-morbidity in patients also infected with HIV. After HIV, TB is the second most lethal infectious disease in the world today.


	14. XIV - Life. Death. Rebirth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Major Character Death Warning.**

* * *

 

Jon sighed, gloved hand pushing his curls back as he glanced up at Clegane’s stone-hard face. The Covenanter adjusted his stance, not nervously, but with a shift of limbs and torso that suggested impatience.

 

The small knot of men waited, closeted behind Winterfell’s ancient gates, and it seemed as if they waited forever. Sam, bless him, he should not be with the fighters but he insisted, hand clutching his sword clumsily, that he would not let Jon go into battle without support. That Jon needed him, and the Crow could not bear to tell his friend that no, Tarly should be with the women. Sweet Sam, with his warmth and goodness, his gentle nature; the way he hugged Jon in the nights when they lay close and shivering and told him that everything would be fine in the end. Everything would be fine. Sometimes they held hands as they slept, a shyness in both men meaning their mutual appreciation advanced no more than fingers touching and arms about each other in the darkness. Perhaps if they were not driven by code, and honour, and the need to prove themselves, if they allowed the natural order in the cold and ice they pledged their lives to, perhaps if Sam were less self-conscious and Jon less aware of his own bastardy, they could have come closer than the gentle celibacy of two people in love who could not broach that barrier.

 

“Nymeria brings the wolves,” Jojen called from overhead. “They approach the gates. Nymeria, Lady, Summer,” and the warmth for that name glowed. “Shaggy Dog.” No more Grey Wind; Roose Bolton killed the dire wolf himself, eyes white and hard as he executed the slayer of his heir. Ghost fell to muskets trying to defend his brood brother, as Jon would have fallen for Robb. That part of his head, without the wolf, seemed broken and wrong and listlessly lost, falling to some dark chasm that threatened Jon himself.

 

Sam’s fingers found his own. They squeezed. The round loving face of his best friend in the entire world, red-raw and frightened and yet brave and dear and beloved, was ashy under the windburn.

 

“Keep near me,” Jon murmured softly. “Just don’t leave me, because I need you to be close.”

 

“I’ll be at your side.”

 

Their foreheads met, damp with cold and condensed breath.

 

* * *

 

“I should be with you.”

 

Willas, frighteningly pale and moving as if underwater, rested his head against Oberyn’s shoulder.

 

“One of us must not fall this day, sweet one.”

 

He laughed, sharp, and started to cough again. Blood filled his throat, but he swallowed because Oberyn needed to concentrate upon battle, not him. He was dying, inch by inch, bloody mouthful by wretched lungs. Willas was dying before his anguished lover, and they could do nothing but wait, fight, and hope.

 

“We will go to Dorne, I promise you. I will send for the best Maesters. The warmth will heal you, I promise you we shall go to Dorne together. After this, no more. Doran shall fight his own battles. After this it is only us, Willas. I swear upon my heart.”

 

* * *

 

Lannisters always paid their debts. Whoever provided the alcohol would be rewarded accordingly, with coin and appreciation and possibly a whore if one could be discovered hiding somewhere. Jaime fastened the chinstrap of his helmet before taking a long swig from a most welcome bottle of mead that miraculously appeared overnight. If Tyrion found it, well, then no sweetly sticky honey would be left for anyone, but the cork had still remained in the heavy pottery vessel when found. Brienne pottered , Podrick-shone armour flashing, passing orders to the men and liaising with Tyrion about whatever nefariously clever plans raced about the dwarf’s head.

 

“I do wish they’d hurry, so we can get to it.”

 

“People would think you wanted to be fighting, wench.”

 

She shrugged, wide shoulders easy under the buffcoat and steel. “I dislike waiting, it builds the nerves of the troops, and that seems to set us at a disadvantage.”

 

“We could always retire to the tent for a few moments.” His grin, sparkling and broad, tweaked a small twitch of lips from the woman.

 

“You are insatiable, Lannister.”

 

“War and fucking, it’s what I excel at. Other people are clever, or have talents like painting, or writing. Some are good with others. I am a leader of men and a fucker of my wench, and if that overlaps then I apologise. Not really, because you are everything in armour that a red-blooded man could want, and I like you in breeches. You know I like you in those doeskin breeches that just lay snug-”

 

“Other men worry about dying, and you wish to make love.”

 

“Fuck,” he corrected, grin sharpening into something leering. “Love making is when it’s all over and we celebrate the destruction of our enemies.”

 

* * *

 

In the early dawn, when pink and night clashed over their heads, driven by need and want and desire, and knowing this could be the first and last, Davos wrapped about his Colonel, his love, his all, and sent them both to the darkest depths of the Stranger’s blackened realm.

 

Collapsed upon Stannis’ chest, he drew patterns endlessly with shortened fingers, over faint scars and peaked nipples, through hair and tacky sweat. The ache was sweet and deep, and he wanted more - everything, all of it, every damned thought, every twisted desire that passed between them in touch, and kisses, and silent reverence. Under him the man breathed evenly, an arm about Seaworth’s waist and holding him close. Sometimes the arm tightened, Stannis swallowing as he stared into the canvas nothing above their heads, as if dragging them both together into a melding mass of damp flesh and craving.

 

Watching Stannis break, watching that whet-hardened resolve melt with pounding and mouthing, with that heat that scorched within Davos’ willing body, proved the most powerful and heart-thrilling moment of the smuggler’s existence.

 

“We should move.”

 

“Just a few more minutes,” Davos asked. “Please, my lord.” Just to solidify the memory. If he died today, if he died for his true God, a Baratheon fleshed God with stormy eyes and passion and greatness, then his last moments should be filled with hands and tongues and burning regard.

 

“As you say, Davos.” The Colonel’s fingers trailed lightly up his solid back, caressing the nape of his neck, burrowing into the greying hair. He could not help but lean into the touch, eyes closing as nails scraped lightly. A tug, and he was being kissed once more, tongues twining and stubble rough, his thigh hard and insistent between Stannis’ long riding-firmed legs. Once more, perhaps, Once more could Stannis take him, shatter them both open with his body and the love that poured from his skin and expression and mouth.

 

The shadows lengthened imperceptibly.

 

“We must rise.”

 

They parted, drifting like seaweed or light dancing snowflakes. As they dressed, they watched, assessed. Remembered. Stannis had a scar to the left of his navel, a bruise fading on a collarbone. Before the man drew on his linen shirt, Davos tasted the mark and then, head rushing, darkened the yellow to reddish-black with his lips and teeth.

 

“Knights always carried the favours of their women into battle. Since I am no woman, and have no handkerchief, that is my favour.” Stannis arched his eyebrows, ran a tentative finger across the blossoming flesh, then gave Davos a twisting, aching smile that set his chest burning cold.

 

* * *

 

Sansa lay with him, her hair spilling across his bare torso, her face turned to his throat. Her delicate kisses moved from cheek to mouth, lingered, tasted. She was beautiful, and lovely, and still so very fragile with her slender glass-delicacy and pretty eyes too large, too wary.

 

“I am scared, Sandor.”

 

“Aye, hen.”

 

“Are you? Do you fear what may happen?”

 

He pulled her nearer, stomach to her back, hand upon her ribcage over layers of wool and linen and those stays that did not lace tight because she starved to save him. Fate, it seemed, would decide. Jojen’s words, that prophecy that lay between him and the green-seer, could stifle a man. Would the dreams ring true; would he, Sandor Clegane, the Covenanter, the lost Hound, who loved a great lady and would marry her when this bollocks finished, finally fall this day?

 

About her wedding finger lay a strip of iron, clumsily hammered into a ring. Functional. Not beautiful. Sandor made it before they lacked the fuel to man the forge, sweating and swearing over the sliver of metal, learning as he tapped and quenched and rolled. The last time she brought him water, and a blanket, when darkness fell the previous day and threatened everything, he took her hand and slipped the ugly jewellery over her knuckle. She kissed him then, slowly, upon his frozen lips, touched her own mouth to that ring as if it were gold and rubies, then disappeared below.

 

“Fate might have ideas about what’s supposed to happen.”

 

Sansa half-sat, that mane tickling his scarred broad body.

 

“Fuck fate, Sandor,” she hissed, language shocking upon her careful tongue, and he felt her darkness meld with his.

 

* * *

 

Robb Stark emerged, spattered with blood and wordless.

 

Tyrion looked up, questioningly.

 

“He will live,” and the voice, rusted and chipped, flaked. “If infection does not set in, he will live. The Red Priest-”

 

“He’s surprisingly good for a heathen, isn’t he? Congratulations upon not losing a carelessly misplaced and once dying squid. Drink?” Half-cut, racing towards glorious drunkenness.

 

Jaime’s mead bottle dangled in his small hand. Robb took it, pulled the cork with his teeth, and drank.

 

“Being pissed is the only way to see a battle, Stark. I recommend you try it since you are obviously in no fit state to take part. Do not fret, your erstwhile and thoroughly aggravating Colonel swooped in and decided to claim he is now in charge.”

 

The redhaired youth slid to crouch next to Tyrion, those wide blue eyes red-raw and uncaring. Robb Stark seemed to have had enough. “Let him have it. I do not wish for this. Any of this. Let him take what he will, and I gladly give it to him. I have lost enough, Lannister. My parents. Grey Wind. I almost lost Theon. I have lost too much to hunger for more.”

 

“Hopefully then Stannis will stop you losing anything else. Oh, and by the way, your little sister is wonderful. Can I buy her? Thoroughly amusing little thing; frightening and mostly mad, but at least she is on our side, eh?”

 

To their side, almost casually, Beric slit his wrists.

 

Flame guttered.

 

* * *

 

 _All men must die_.

 

She was as her sword; lean and sharp and lethal.

 

Jojen, upon the standing tower of the gatehouse, called to the skies, and she turned Nymeria to him, riding upon her mind. Grey Wind and Ghost bounded, shadows yes but there, in memory, running with them all, still there, still hunting. She led the pack now, she dominated even if Shaggy Dog snapped at her heels with the stubbornness of childhood. Summer and Lady allowed her, they let the strong-willed matriarch drive and command and shriek her hatred. Rickon laughed, wild as his wolf; feral Rickon as Bran whispered softness and magicks that only he and Jojen understood, and the green-seer was with them also, an emerald film across all of their eyes. Sansa never came. She never did. Her taste ran to Hounds.

 

Arya grinned. Tasted blood and meat and metal.

 

The wolves at the gates of Winterfell, and the wood and iron creaked.

 

A thickening stench of blood, Bolton blood, and she bared her teeth as winter broke furious with the howls of dire wolves, and the shattering of Baratheon muskets, and the screaming hunger of the Winterfell gates as the Hound led his men to the slaughter.

 

* * *

 

Two, perhaps three hours. Three hours where blood poured.

 

Winter came. Broke.

 

Death.

 

All men must die. _Valar morghulis._

 

All men must serve. _Valar Dohaeris_.

 

* * *

 

 

Roose Bolton stood before Colonel Baratheon, mouth a pressed slit in a visage of pinched fleshless paleness. Lannister had bound the man’s wrists cruelly tight behind his back, drew the rope nerve-pinching and angry and hating with the cords tangled about the fingers of his golden hand.

 

Baratheon did not blame Jaime. Not when-

 

“Baratheon.” Poised, brutally elegant, a voice as cold as his skin, as Winterfell, even as the snow seemed to melt before their eyes leaving pools of blood-filled water upon crushed and broken grass. The air seemed calmer, a faint hope of the sun behind clouds that swirled whitish rather than wild Stark-grey. Before them, upon the battlefield and before the opened gates of the citadel, men moved to gather the dead. None would moulder and rot, be feasts for carrion. None, not even Ramsay Bolton. No man deserved to lay exposed upon a tor and be left as crow food. The dire wolves paced, and the Winterfell dead were borne into the castle, the lamentations of the women and children still echoing.

 

“Bolton.”

 

“I presume you mean to keep to the terms of surrender?”

 

Stannis ran his fingertips over his peeling cracked lips, tasting blood.

 

“Your men may return to their homes, as agreed. Give me one reason why I should not have you hanged as the traitor that you are.”

 

“A fair trial, Baratheon, in a court of law manned by my peers. That is the civilised way of things. That is how your republic would work, is it not? One law for all, from dictator to traitor.”

 

Baratheon tightened his jaw, teeth screaming. The old laws of the north, the laws of Roose Bolton, of Robb Stark, of the ones beyond the ancient wall; they spoke of execution, of the swift justice of a sword to the neck. Lannister could swing the blade of his house, the blade of Brienne, could drive it through vertebrae and cleave flesh and avenge the vicious acts of the Bolton armies. That would be swift, undeniable justice. Roose falling, the Dreadfort in the hands of the parliamentarians - the north loyal to the endless march of the Baratheon war machine.

 

Just one blow of a sword.

 

Davos. Davos would-

 

“Take him away. I do not wish to see his face. Winterfell will prove a prison he cannot escape until he is brought to trial. Let Robb Stark have him.”

 

Roose started forward, protesting, but Florent and Aurane Waters swiftly removed the traitor, past the scarlet-searing anger of Jaime Lannister, and out into the muggy sweat of the afternoon.

 

“I would have slayed him, Baratheon.” Rough; so rough and raw and scratched.

 

“I know. I would have let you, but he is, unfortunately, correct. No man is above or below the law, and the law must prevail. He will die, Lannister. I swear to you, he shall, he will die for what he ordered.” He bade Jaime sit, poured wine, pushed the pewter tankard into his hands. Gone was the arrogant spit and roar of a Lannister lion. Gone was the green-eyed sparkle and cheerful devilry. The man seemed every inch of his years, and ten more upon them, as he drained the mug and held it wordlessly to be refilled.

 

“I am sorry, Lannister. I am so very sorry for your loss.” So ineffectual the words seemed, so impotent. A token, a nothing, that could not bring back a loved one, or save a life, or beg for a second chance.

 

Jaime wrapped his hand about the metal cup, staring into the red depths of wine that Oberyn Martell left behind in his haste to flee south with Tyrell.

 

“I am going to get very drunk. So drunk that I forget. It is what he would have wanted.”

 

* * *

 

Robb still burned, still felt the licking of flame across his wrists and forearms, though the pain did not register. The Red Priest wrapped his arms in clean linens, liniment applied thick to try and help moisten the wounds. They were such that he could just idly investigate what lay under the bandages, nerve endings destroyed by heat. Thankfully his fingers still moved. He plunged his arms into the fire when he saved Theon once more - and the youth lay sleeping quietly next to him, drugged with whatever potions Thoros fed into his protesting stomach. Winterfell seemed empty; the losses proved great. Good men died. His men, the ones who saved his home, his lands. Lord Stark of Winterfell, and he did nothing - nothing - to protect his own apart from send Clegane.

 

Perhaps that proved to be the answer. A loyal dog. Perhaps Clegane had more in common with the Stark wolves than could ever be realised.

 

Theon shifted, whined. Nightmares plagued, of Ramsay Bolton, and agony, and torment. Robb could not touch him, for Theon would not let him. Drugged simple by those eastern herbals, he flinched at hands upon his body, but shook more when gentled and caressed.

 

Tyrion Lannister, aflame, still holding a sword too large for him, drunk as a lord as he burned with  the sick and dying; Roose Bolton called a retreat and turned his wrath upon the Lannister camp. Heroic.

 

Nausea struck.

 

Theon awoke with a shudder, terror twisting his raw-boned face into something Ramsay Bolton created, encouraged. Grey Wind, and Robb had been with his wolf even as his body trudged behind Stannis Baratheon, had sensed the Bastard’s regard, and excitement, and the sickness of a lust borne of blood and torment. A possession, Bolton had thought - and Ramsay, the fool, the sadistic _fuck_ \- believed that he owned Theon. Of course the wolf tore out his throat, but it had been a Stark mouth that snapped, that commanded. Blood and death and victory in one wrench of powerful jaws. He still tasted the black sweetness of the dead man, tainted blood that rotted on his tongue.

 

Theon belonged to Robb the man and Robb the wolf. With Grey Wind gone, the ferality spread like plague to his own head. He thought as both; he scented more deeply, could hear mice scurrying in the granary, or trickling water outside of the walls as the snow turned to rivulets of ice-clearness. Roose Bolton screamed through the stones of Winterfell, demanding and angered at his treatment, and Robb heard every syllable. To go to the cellars, to go and do to father as he did to son, but with his own square teeth-

 

No. He must retain his humanity. Jon had touched his arm, Sam’s blood painting his cheeks and thoroughly lost without Ghost, and they mourned as the pack for the merest of moments before his brother fled to a helpless grief beyond them all. Shadows still flitted. The connection between siblings and wolves and wargs still existed, though softer now, a dreaming haze. At least something survived. Jon circled, aimless and blank and out of reach. Arya howled and paced and Rickon bathed in blood, cackling. Bran? Green dreams and quietude, endlessly looking for his soul. Jojen had not returned but seemed to be alive somewhere. For his brother’s sake he hoped that the Reed boy came back. So young, both of them, but bound together by something the Starks understood, respected. Old Gods and dreams.

 

As Father always said, wolves and Winterfell and wise words honed by decency; the lone wolf dies but the pack will always survive.

 

“Sweetheart.”

 

“No. Don’t fucking call me that, Robb. Anything but that.” Dry, and hoarse. Dusty.

 

One day he may ask. He heard from others that talking could help. Soldiers who saw death and war, they drank and huddled together trading stories. Men with eyes like Theon’s, milky with horrors beyond their control, watching events of years, decades, unfold endlessly within their heads. The marks suggested, though. Strangulation. Biting between thighs and over hip bones, peppering and ugly and scarring. Long curling half-healed whip marks. Theon’s once proud nose, twisting precariously. His teeth, his shining charming beautiful pearl-white teeth that crowned his crooked grin. Lost. The necklace that Bolton wore lay heavy in Robb’s pocket. Nothing hurt more than the reaction to that pet-name, that sweetness turned rank and wrong. His Manxman’s body may heal to some extent, even with that hideous wound - Ramsay’s thrill at unleashing pain had been too great, too drunk with blood and death and power to truly slaughter - but his mind seemed so eggshell delicate. More broken than any bone.

 

“Theon. D’you need-?”

 

“Just cut my throat.” His sore-pocked lips tugged into a haunted smile, broken and helpless. “Just let me go.”

 

“No.”

 

“Didn’t think of you as cruel. Not to me.”

 

All his life Robb had been sensible. His father’s broad-shouldered red-haired son, honour and tradition. The Young Wolf of the north. The heir and now the Lord of Winterfell. A good boy, Cat always said, with a swelling pride and a loving gaze as she tried to tame his curls with a comb, or encourage his penmanship, or watched him change from child to a stocky, lean-faced man. Always honour, and tradition, and doing what seemed to be for the best. To end Theon’s suffering. To slide a narrow knife across a throat he once kissed, and loved. His throat. Theon belonged to him.

 

His. And even if this was wrong, and selfish, and yes, this was purely self-interest because he had lost Theon and would never let the man go now he returned, the decision and the aftermath was his to ride. The wolf snarled, a rumble of possession reverberating within his head, and he did not realise his clear blue eyes turned amber. 

 

“You are mine, Theon. I killed for you. I fought for you. I burned for you. I will not let you go.”

 

“Yes, my lord.” Greyjoy flinched, anguished and sick at his own words, mumbling something about Ramsay and lordship and love.

 

* * *

 

_Fucking shit bastard cunting fuckers_

 

He breathed, feeling blood boil in his chest and flooding thickened and awfulness.

 

_Bollocking fuckcunts shit shit shit fuck you Jojen fucking Reed_

 

No Maester, just a woman in red with long hair and never as beautiful as Sansa. Watching him with strange eyes that burned with fire. Fingers digging into wounds, assessing. No pain. Too far gone.

 

_Dying dying and Sansa. Hen_

 

Her hair a poured glass of claret and skin so white it seems to be the moon. Wrong fucking redhead. A ruby winked at her throat.

 

_Forgive me hen while I break my fuckin’ hecht and I would take ye guidwife wumman in name and licht-hert leed leed sorry forgive me_

 

“Can anything be done?”

 

_Lang-lippent Colonel at th’ hinder-end o’all_

 

“He will die, Stannis. I have seen this in the flames.”

 

“Gods help us all. He was a good man. Few understood that. A loyal and trusted man.”

 

 _Bidh gaol agam ort fad mo bheatha, thusa 's gun duine eile fuck_ _Gàidhlig cunt Gregor_

 

_Sansa-_

 

* * *

 

“Brienne?”

 

She looked up from where she closed the eyes of one of her men. Musket to the cheek, slow and heavy and leaden, and her gloves absorbed the bone matter and blood. This needed to be done. Her boys, her brave boys; they fought, and died, like the Lions they were.

 

“Ser, one moment, please.” The prayer she spoke, a whisper to a dead man, spoke of protection and love, of righting the sins of the mother who failed, delivering a child to the care of the Seven. Every night, for long years after Galladon had died, her father recited this. She absorbed it, kept it hidden in a locked part of her brave heart, and she was the mother to her troops. She failed them, yes, but she could commend their souls with the care of a loving parent.

 

A kiss to the forehead, cold under her mouth, before she stood. The pallbearers would take this man, inter him. He could go to the Seven with love.

 

The man before her, kind-eyed and exhausted, reached out and gently took her hand. Davos reminded her of Father; kind, and wise. Strong. Always there, from when she was younger, when she followed her first love Renly. He and the Colonel, and Stannis had been the Lord of Dragonstone then, who loathed coming to court and spent much of his day hiding behind Seaworth, had always been respectful. Perhaps they sensed her spirit, her inner goodness. When Renly died, and Brienne knew now that she atoned, that it was not her fault, Davos had wrapped his strong, soothing embrace and let her sob.

 

“Tyrion-”

 

“I know.”

 

“Your lord needs you, my lady.”

 

“I cannot leave my boys.”

 

Fingers tightened and she felt herself slip for a moment, tears threatening and ugly and black. If she let herself go now, she may never stop.

 

Arms found her, pulled her against sturdy softness and muscle, and he smelled of horses and the Colonel and the sea, and she understood. Renly would have laughed to see his brother bound to another man, helpless in his want. Perhaps hiding a true nature made one fear that truth, made a person lash out and accuse. Hate. Jealousy at openness, at never revealing a true self, could poison. Unless, of course, the good man who was loved returned the love. Stannis never hid his disgust at Renly’s choice, even if he half-worshipped his younger brother, had starved to keep the boy alive during Robert’s war. With the eldest Baratheon holding court, with Robert as King, Stannis had parented Renly, had driven, and isolated, and forced a wedge between them, but the Colonel always loved in his coldly logical manner.

 

If a man could have the love of Davos Seaworth, the best of men, then he must deserve such affection.

 

“Do you wish me to help, my lady?” His voice, warm and low and so terrible in his understanding, rumbled. Davos Seaworth had buried too many of his fine sons. Today he would bury another; Devan, with his fine eye and keen humour, his bright cheer, lost in a tumult of cavalry and riflemen.

 

“No, thank you ser. I must do this.”

 

“Of course. I will tell Jaime that you are attending to your dead, he will understand. He loves you, very much.”

 

“You love the Colonel.” A little brightness, something to catch like a gorgeous butterfly in winter. Something beautiful that bred hope for new beginnings.

 

He did not smile, but his brown eyes took on a curious softness.

 

“For all of my sins. He forgives them all.”

 

* * *

 

Sam looked peaceful, white and black in his Maester robes. Clean. Jon had washed the body himself, struggled, changed the unfamiliar armour for the comforting always of the neat clothing of rank that Tarly worked so hard to achieve. He refused the help of anyone in his task. This was his duty to his fellow Crow, who died as bravely as a man ever could. Crows never betrayed a brother.

 

Monochrome.

 

Jon lay next to him, still slicked in the blood of his closest friend, of his true friend.

 

He circled endlessly in his head.

 

Chasms of nothing that fell forever. Whiteness. Lost in a desert of ice where a dead wolf and a dead man haunted the air. Each step seemed false.

 

He should have insisted Sam stay. Sam should never have been at his side. In the end that killed his kind gentle maester, sent him to the snow in a flurry of blood, and Jon stood over the dying man and fought until his hands dripped and his sword shone scarlet, fought so Sam would not die alone and without his friend, and finally, when he could fall to his knees and gather Sam against him, he was rewarded with the slow smile of a man at peace with death.

 

“I love you, Jon Snow,” he said, a lightness that could almost not be heard..

 

He stayed there, numb, Sam nestled close. He stayed there as the battle raged and ebbed, and Brienne found them, helped him silently take the dead man to the room they shared within Winterfell’s wailing walls. He stayed, and cleansed, and cared, and loved, and broke into jagged-shard fragments as he lay upon the once warm and comforting mattress, where Sam took his fingers shy between his own soft ones, and they watched each other sleep.

 

The others did not approach, not even Arya. They watched, in his head, as he lost himself to the endless wastes, blinded and frozen.

 

Jon always seemed the lone wolf.

 

Apart from with Sam.

 

With Sam, he finally belonged.

 

* * *

 

“You’re alive. I didn’t know-”

 

Podrick, scorched but mostly intact - stupid idiot, with stupid eyebrows frazzled off his stupid fat lovely handsome kind stupid face - touched her cheek with trembling soot-black fingers.

 

Arya stared up wolf-eyed, greyish, opened her mouth to snap her usual bile, and then she was in his arms, legs about his bulky torso, hands in his hair, face buried against his scratchy stubbled neck. He shuddered under her, holding her about her boyish waist and hugging her so very tightly; that death rush of adrenaline mixed with a thankfulness that glowed so honest that she almost slapped him for showing such emotion.

 

 _Of course I’m alive, you stupid prick_ , she wanted to say. _Of course I live, I am the one that takes lives. I am the sword. I am a weapon who stabs and bleeds. The wolf. The needle in the night. I am death. I am Winter, like my brothers and sister. I am the North._

 

She stammered into his warm bread-sweet yeasty beer skin, comforting and there and humanity  and so very Pod. Solid and dependable Pod, who saw her cry and held her without thinking because of his decency, because that was what he was, even when she was a snarling boy. Decency. Father would have loved him; she knew that. Podrick was like Father. Podrick was like being home. His solid Winterfell mass, and the curling ivy of his dark hair.

 

Asking him to kiss her surprised them both, but he did; a chasteness and heat and stupid goodness that set her angry hardened heart galloping in her thin chest.

 

* * *

 

"Bring him back.” Lilting, caught between child and man.

 

Melisandre looked up from her ministrations, her ancient eyes meeting verdant green. He saw what she saw; a boy. A beautiful fae boy, fair of hair and powerful. She sensed it, he could see that. She tested the strength radiating with her own, and he pushed, sharp and mossy and she caught the wall as she stumbled back, saving herself from plummeting to the stone.

 

“Flames. Born in flames, Melisandre. Seastar. Daughter of Bloodraven. Dark arts and ruby necklaces, the Seastar your mother wore to glamour. Dragons who burn, like Priests and fires.” He seemed not there, incorporate as words poured; his mouth did not move. His accent, east and north and flickering in Latinate and then English and then the ancient tongues of the Targaryen kings, wrapped about her throat like her ruby choker “You wear to glamour. They do not see, but the Raven always sees, Melony. He sees you. Beauty and ancient and loveliness and lies like your sainted damned mother.”

 

“Who are you?” She tried to keep her voice level.

 

“Sweet daughter of the Three-Eyed Raven. Melony. Melisandre. Caught between fire and green and that ancestry that twists and beds sister to brother, and breeds for power.” He laughed, high and young and thrumming. So much strength, tree-creaking and leaf mold. He tasted it, tasted her, with a press of his mind and she trembled under his intrusion.

 

“Tell me who you are!”

 

“Bring him back.”

 

“Who are you, green dreamer!”

 

“His herald.” The boy seemed not there but everywhere, swirling and seeing and in her head and writhing at her hammering pulse. “I am his herald. Bring him back.”

 

“He is dead.”

 

“The corpse who walks rises with the Kiss of his Priest. Seven times he fell. Seven times he took the sweetest of kisses. You were taught your magic for a reason, daughter of dragons, of flame and the ancient ones. Given to the Red Priests for a reason. She never would wed, your sainted mother. Loved. Lied. Took. Grew large with his child. She fled east, so far that even he lost her in his Sight. And she bore you, a red-blood Seastarred child with dragons and power and glamour and the blood of the seers, and you learned the flames and drank the Dawn and you looked for your Prince who was Promised and he is not Baratheon. We saw this, you and I. Green and flame and the Lord of Light and the Old God promises. Bring him back. Bring back the dark warrior of the green, of the old ways, of the Gods and north and flesh. Bring him back and the husband of your lover will plough the lands, salt the earth, flense and cleanse and free the us all.”

 

The boy, gleaming and unearthly, touched her cheek with fingers that belonged to a long-dead man.

 

“I ask you daughter of the Bloodraven, of the Three-Eyed One. Melisandre of the Red, the ruby Seastar at the throat of Azor Ahai, His flaming sword in the darkness ,His promise of the Light. Your father asks for his warrior, his man forged of pain, so, I beg, in green and red and winter and the Dawn. Bring him back. In salt and fire and burning kisses your man will rise. The warrior of the Three-Eyed Crow, the warrior of your father, is the warrior that you seek.”

 

Before her the torch sputtered, blazing green forming shadows; the eerie wildfire spoke, and she fell to her knees, and Melisandre _believed_.

 

* * *

 

“It has been signed, your grace.”

 

Captain Seaworth knelt before Baratheon, as unassuming as ever. His hair tended greyer, silver-streaked from temple to beard, and the lines upon his kind face cut deeper now, but he still remained the good man, the true and loyal servant, of faith and country and, above all, the black-clad figure before whom he bowed his head. The scroll he carried, bulky with wax seals and ribbons of state, lay heavily and dolorous in his curled palm. Weighty. Overly important.

 

“Then it is done?”

 

“Aye, it is done apart from yourself. You are the last, my lord, to sign.”

 

Colonel Baratheon - no, Lieutenant-General Stannis Baratheon now, raised in rank after the Battle of Winterfell, de facto leader of the Commonwealth and Republic of England - offered a hand.

 

Davos took it and rose, with the faintest of winces. Age seemed to threaten at every turn.

 

“Come and speak with me, Seaworth.”

 

Stannis’ rooms were like the man himself; utilitarian. A dark carved oak four poster bed, a matching writing desk littered with papers. Unbleached bed linens. Curtains of a heavy and unassuming black and golden brocade discovered not in the royal suite but the room of some minor minister. These were the chambers of a gentleman, not a king. Davos poured wine, as he always did, and they shared the goblet. Some things could never change, even in peace.

 

There was no crown. There was no King.

 

The scroll lay upon the oaken desk, Baratheon unfurling the parchment and noting the names. Fifty eight others, writ in fifty eight differing hands, and his lord, his God, was to be the fifty ninth.

 

“Does Martell really need to write so large?”

 

“He does have more titles than many, Stannis."

 

A hiss of a sigh, before the man seemingly shook himself, reaching for the quill pen. Ink dipped, dripped, then he scribed his name with a neat fastidiousness upon the page. Melted the wax over a taper, the same coloured wax he carried throughout the two wars, pressed the seal to the thickening liquid, and there.

 

It was done.

 

It was over.

 

Fifty nine regicides.

 

_Joffrey Lannister, the last of his name, tried and convicted of high treason against the proud realm of England and her people, is to be taken sennight from hence from his captivity at Dragonstone to the palace at Whitehall. Here the traitor is to be summarily executed by a sword to the neck as befits his status as a former King of the realm. Praise to our Faith, and to our Commonwealth, in the year of the Seven, January 1649._

 

Too many years had this taken. Two wars. Almost a decade. Thousands dead and buried upon moorland and tor, in heathland and fields, from Scotland to the Dornish peninsula. Finally they could lay at rest. Finally a country could mourn and rebuild upon the ruin of what it had become. Ghosts still haunted. Names still burned upon sorrowful lips. Davos shivered, gooseflesh trailing his tanned forearms, before warm fingers laid across the nape of his neck.

 

Stannis understood. He always did.

 

“Come to bed, smuggler. Make love with me.” 

 

Physicality drove the demons back to the shadows, for them both. Sometimes everything felt so heavy, so leaden, that both men took pause. To kill a king, to be a Kingslayer -  for Jaime Lannister twice over - grew and morphed and shaped into an ugly thing, a discoloured tumour upon troubled souls. But they knew, it must be done. Without the head of the Bastard King, without Joffrey dead, nothing would change. He would find support upon the continent; Europe, horrified by what may happen to their own borders when another country overthrew a monarchy, pulled tight and angry and snappish. Tommen fled to France with his mother, Marcella still imprisoned, albeit with caring regard, in Doran Martell’s beautiful fragrant palace. Perhaps the boy would garner favour, a lost aristocrat drifting across the Holy Roman Empire, or Spain, or north to the vast silence of Muscovy to beg for an army from Ivan Vasilyevich. Sometimes Stannis lay awake beside him, silent and jaw grinding, and Davos knew the man thought _what if_.

 

Finally they stilled, tangled and sweat-streaked and breathing in tandem as their kisses grew languid, soft. A semblance of peace now, of tranquil tenderness, causing the men to rest more easy. Making love in a bed seemed a rarity, even now. So often Stannis took him hurriedly, ill-prepared and desperate, at camp or in a bustling headquarters, both needy for the touch and the release. To lay upon soft sheets and linger; luxurious and oddly intimate.

 

“I presume the usual are to attend for supper?” Martyred.

 

He chuckled, nuzzling the slight softness of Stannis’ belly. “Yes, you have to entertain Oberyn.”

 

“He is worse when Tyrell remains in Dorne. He mopes and then purposely irritates me to soothe his own peevish mood.”

 

“Be thankful he does not mourn, Stannis.” Willas still battled, still fought, and by the grace of the Seven, still lived. Diminished, yes, and frail; grey haired and too slender and old beyond his years. Martell cossetted and fussed, swore that they would flee to Florence or Siena the moment his Tyrell’s health threatened, but, much to Baratheon’s ire and ill-tempered relief, they remained at their estates in the south. Willas wrote cheerfully apologetic letters of theoretical rule and philosophy to the General, recommended Tuscan authors and Lombardic tomes of war and politic. Stannis replied with his usual terseness.

 

“And I have the eternal shame of being in-lawed to him.”

 

“Shireen is fond of Quentyn, and they are a good match. You adore your grandchildren.” Devan would have been finer still than Oberyn’s nephew; he often thought of his son, buried deep at the Stark weirwood in the ancient graveyard, with a pride and love and sadness that drifted wistfully soft like dandelion seeds in the summer. The pain of loss had dulled to an ache, a bruise, that sometimes he caught without considering.

 

“Are we to have an entire war-worth of my elite to our table?” Grumbling. He found Stannis rather appealing when he grumbled, the distilled spirit of Baratheon in one curling lip.

 

“Lord Stark has left for Winterfell; he will not leave Theon alone too long given his moods. Jaime is to ask Brienne, but she still ails - surely she will birth soon, Stannis? She grows so large. Perhaps it is twins?”

 

“We all know what happened the last time a Lannister sired twins.”

 

“Yes, Stannis.” He shook his head, beard against skin, kissing once more. “But consider that the mother is not Cersei, and we are therefore blessed with Brienne’s children. You must agree that is a finer proposition, even if Jaime is the father. I am looking forward to having little ones about once more.”

 

“She is a daughter to you.”

 

“It is what she has needed since her father died.”

 

“You are a good father.” The war brought orphans; he knew Stannis appreciated that one of them could be warm and paternal and demonstrative to the young ones they sheltered. Davos cared, deep and strong and bright. He took to the youngest Stark children with kindly ease, even wild Rickon who still tore through the halls of the once king’s palace, shadowed by his enormous dire wolf, to flee from tutors who dare teach him lessons. A commander in the making, they both knew, as brave and fierce as his sister. Bran, who now lived at Winterfell as he grew from child to willow-slender, delicate youth, devoured classics and politics, economics and theology. Once Stannis asked if he would train to become a Maester, but the boy turned a page in his Latin grammar primer, glancing to the ever lurking and thoroughly strange green-eyed Reed boy who snorted at the suggestion.

 

Arya remained in the north, with her quiet young man, and searched for the body of Jon Snow.

 

She said the wolves would never stop howling until her brother came home, until the lone wolf came to the pack, until his clean-picked bones lay at peace with Sam Tarly’s own.

 

Something about Arya terrified them both.

 

* * *

 

“Stannis?” The sun slid lower, the shadows changing as they lay close. They needed to rise, to greet their guests, but even now every moment they could spend together, alone, shone opal precious, gorgeous colours of azure and lavender and cream.

 

“Yes?”

 

“Who will wield the blade? For Joffrey.”

 

He knew. They both knew.

 

* * *

 

_When he breathed again, a stuttering shock to his irreparably damaged system, memories fainter than once came before but still stuffed with red hair and Tully eyes, and the soft-curved body of the Red Priestess flung across his chest, the corpse who lived turned to the boy and those once dead grey-flamed eyes burned brighter than the brazier that once branded his cheek._

 

_Didn’t tell me that, did you? Wee fuckin’ shite.” Stickiness and congealing made his voice thick and gelatinous._

 

_And Jojen Reed, green-dreaming and faery and the herald of the Raven and the ancient northern Gods, laughed._

 

_He caught up his sword, that old-fashioned Claymore that lay pitted and dull at his side, and the blade burst into green-tainted wildfire that danced and consumed his hands and burned neither flesh nor bone._

 

_“Fuck’s sake. Had to be fucking me, didn’t it, with this fire shit. Cunting Gods with their shitting irony.”_

 

_“I told you they believed in you, Sandor Clegane. Lightbringer. Green Man. The Gods believe in us all.”_

 

_The Covenanter stood, flames trickling across his chest, and went to claim his woman._

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No historical bit here, just a huge thank you for everyone for reading this now insanely long story. I hope you enjoyed it, and I'm just ever so grateful for your wonderful support and feedback.
> 
>  
> 
> Incidentally the Melisandre-influenced conclusion was planned at the beginning of my story, always the point to aim towards; I was most amused to find them fitting in with S6 ep.1, at least in parts. I shall not spoiler obviously, but if anyone wishes for further investigation into Mel not being as she seems, and if anyone wishes to read up about the possibility of S+B=M, [this](http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?/topic/96824-sbm-mel-the-red-star-bleeding-melony-seastar-part-2-has-been-added-on-pg9/) is my favourite and invaluable resource. 
> 
>  
> 
> Lastly, some of you may wonder why this fic is called _1644_. That year marked the turning point of the English Civil War, with the battle of Marsden Moor. Parliamentarian and Covenant forces besieged York, and met Prince Rupert's Royalists upon the aforementioned battle site. After a confudes two hour battle, Cromwell's cavalry destroyed the Cavalier army, leading to the effective abandonment of the North by Charles I.


End file.
